


By the Accident of Blood

by ScopesMonkey



Series: Hollowverse [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Abduction, Case Fic, M/M, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-11 20:52:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 68,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4451948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScopesMonkey/pseuds/ScopesMonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unable to return to Paris, Sherlock attempts to solve the case of a missing French author from London.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was galling to be stuck in London, a physically offensive sensation that grated at every nerve. Two days ago he'd yearned to be back here, but now the familiar streets and faces and sounds were like a cage, penning him in. And Mycroft held the only key.

Sherlock had been happy to bid good-bye to Paris; now he would have given anything ( _almost anything, not John_ ) to get back there.

Paris needed him now, and he'd made the foolish mistake of stepping away from it, of coming home, only to be ensnared by Mycroft's machinations, by John's reasonable assertions that if Alexandre Georges had been targeted, it may have something to do with them, and they were safer here, where they had protection.

But the crime hadn't happened here, and he had no access. He had no Lestrade in with the _gens d'armes_ , nor Hassard, nor any of the others. No one he could wheedle for information. No one who needed his assistance – no, no one who _wanted_ his assistance, because it _was_ needed, now more than ever, for an innocuous man whose only connection to Sherlock was a faked letter.

The damned letter. It had been the first thing he'd asked about – the baby had been the first thing John had asked about. She was fine, predictably, at home with the mother when Georges had vanished en route to his flat from some promotional event.

There was no answer about the letter. Mycroft could find out, but he had refused, insisting Sherlock leave it in the hands of the French authorities, that Sherlock not get involved – but he _was_ involved, because the timing couldn't be coincidental.

Georges had gotten them to Paris – or at least his name had – and Georges had vanished almost immediately after they'd left.

The detective who had flown over to interview them certainly hadn't missed that connection, but persistent questioning – Sherlock's persistence, not the French officer's – hadn't paid off, and without any actual responses or information, nothing he could deduce did more than generate more questions.

It hadn't helped that Lestrade had been there, putting the brakes on every time Sherlock had been getting somewhere.

But John – John was on _his_ side. In the absence of any official information, or permission to leave the country, there were still ways of getting what he needed. Mycroft's authority didn't extend to inside the flat – John was very clear about that, had been from the beginning. A quick but thorough sweep had prevented Mycroft from listening, and it had been John who had suggested hacking the _gens d'armes_.

It had taken longer than Sherlock would have liked, longer than it would have with the Met, but the system was new to him. Different. Still, there were back ways and hidden entrances, and he was an expert in those.

Nine months playing dead, moving like a ghost through the world, had sharpened more than just his physical ability to go undetected.

The search into the _gens d'armes_ ' system left him not much wiser than he had been before he'd accessed all their information. There was no crime scene – the hired vehicle Georges had been using had vanished, along with its driver. Some very unlucky junior officer was now tasked with scouring traffic cameras, trying to catch one car in a city of millions, but without knowing the route, the possibilities were almost endless.

Without a crime scene, there were no forensics, no clues. Nothing.

The driver's agency had been forthcoming at least, although that too had led nowhere. Three years employment with that agency, impeccable credentials, clean record. Georges had used this particular driver before, so no reason for him to be suspicious.

That would make it easier, of course.

Presuming the driver had been involved, and not himself a victim of a carjacking, a body not yet discovered.

There were too many variables – the elated feeling that normally drove Sherlock stalled by the fact that nothing could be tied together. There was nowhere to _start_ , aside from the scant information they already had, which was nearly as good as nothing.

It had to be Georges himself. There had to be something in his past, some overlooked detail that would mark him out as a target.

Had Sherlock been in France, he could have chased down these fragile leads, spoken to people, picked up on all the poorly concealed hints and tells that were better than lighted signs would have been. He could have found a hidden trail and followed it through the city's streets and alleys and hidden places.

But here– he snarled, snapping the computer shut, startling John.

"He can't just be gone!"

John's eyes widened slightly, lips parting to voice a reply; Sherlock held up a hand quickly, forestalling whatever the doctor was going to say.

There was always a trail.

Always.

Except when there wasn't.

He narrowed his eyes, gaze skimming over the memory of a sweeping landscape of hills and rolling meadows, rocky outcrops against a pristine sky.

_They_ had just been gone. From London to Wales, one moment to the next.

Sherlock opened the laptop again, working furiously, aware (as he always was) of John's gaze on him, silently questioning.

"Air traffic," Sherlock said.

"What?"

"We were taken from here to Wales by helicopter, John, but there had to be some record of it. A flight plan logged – can't fly over the city without someone knowing where you are and where you're going."

"But– wouldn't that be a bit suspicious? 'Oh we're just flying to northern Wales in the middle of the night.'"

"They'd have used a different end destination. Somewhere that took them through the area, where they could have flown to afterwards."

"So you think someone flew Alexandre out of Paris? Out of France?"

"I don't know," Sherlock murmured, half distracted from the conversation by the task of hacking into air traffic control in Paris – not a simple feat, and nor would figuring out the myriad flight paths and air craft on those routes.

He had no idea. It was possible. If Georges had been taken from France altogether, finding him would become exponentially more difficult. But there were other ways to get out of the country, no checks traveling between most continental European countries, and ways around the security going through the Channel Tunnel.

Whoever had taken Georges knew what they were doing.

The person who had taken _them_ had known what she was doing.

"But why?" Sherlock demanded, surprised that John started, surprised at the sound of his own voice. He hadn't meant to say it, not out loud, but now he had a sounding board, even if John hated the subject.

"Why what?" the doctor asked.

"Why would _she_ take him, John?"

John was startled again, pulling back the way he always did now at the mention of _her_ – always torn between which woman they were talking about before figuring it out. It was too complicated, all the ridiculous, unnecessary baggage piled on top of them, like a weight he needed to dislodge to think clearly, but one that he couldn't crawl out from underneath.

"You think– you think she did this?"

"She took us," Sherlock said shortly.

"Yeah, but–"

"And the symbols in the tunnels, John! That paint was fresh – within a day or two of us being down there. Someone knew we'd find it. Someone also knew we'd find _him_."

"But why?" John asked, echoing Sherlock's question.

The detective pushed himself to his feet, confined by the length of the room, the objects that filled their home suddenly obstacles in his way, hemming him in. Baker Street, London – they were never meant to be prisons, but he was trapped here, as surely as he had been in Wales – more so because Mycroft was keeping him here, not trying to get him out, but he needed to get out, to be where he'd just been, he needed _access_ , contacts he didn't even have in the Paris police force and–

"Deep breath! Hold it!"

The command rooted Sherlock, his body obeying without any input from his mind. Part of him was alarmed at how well it worked, how readily he responded to John's military voice, the tiny piece of resentment swallowed by the ability to refocus, and by the fact that he knew John would never do this to him in public, never let his weaknesses show.

"Good. Let it out. Slowly."

Piercing blue eyes watched him intently until John was satisfied that Sherlock was back on track, but the tension didn't leave his muscles, stiffening his shoulders, and Sherlock knew his partner would pay for that later.

It could wait.

It would have to.

They were already running out of time.

"There was nothing in the novel," John said. Sherlock nodded, mechanically. He'd read it. He'd made John read it. A tenuous hope that the story line would have touched on something familiar, perhaps even reflect Sarraf and Sir Richard's deaths, that he could make a direct link to _something_ George knew about that he shouldn't have.

Georges had friends in the _gens d'armes_. It could have been something from one of their cases.

As far as he could tell, it wasn't. Maybe small details here and there, but nothing that should get a man abducted.

Vaguely, Sherlock wondered if John would have enjoyed the book under normal circumstances.

He hoped so.

There were too many places to start. None of them stood out as promising, or even likely.

Everything he had built here – and rebuilt since returning – seemed useless. He understood London, how it breathed, how it moved, how to turn its spies and markers and keepers to his own needs.

None of that mattered now.

He was in the wrong place, knew the wrong people.

Sherlock paused, aware of John watching him, careful and evaluating. Something nudged the edge of his mind, something wrong about this isolated, helpless feeling.

It was imposed. Artificial. _He_ didn't know anyone in the _gens d'armes_ but not for nothing had he developed all those contacts in the Met, hammering the important ones back into shape after a nine-month absence.

Mycroft was keeping him trapped here, in a place that was never meant to be a trap, but there was no reason it had to be. Physically, perhaps. But there were ways around it, and if he couldn't go to the information, he would force the information to come to him.

No one else was going to solve this.

It might be a ploy, a dangerous dance, and Sherlock was aware that he was being pulled into it, but stepping back wasn't an option. Not for himself – this game, he would have walked away from, much to John's surprise, and probably much to John's relief, but there wasn't a body, whose fate was already sealed.

There was a man, with the misfortune of having been roped into something he was not part of.

_She_ owed him. She owed him for John, for those three interminable days in Wales knowing there might not be any more John, and now she owed him for this.

"Get your things," Sherlock said, registering the flash of surprise in John's blue eyes, the way he moved for his wallet and keys almost immediately, any questions unvoiced. "We're going out."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M TOTALLY NOT GOING TO BE COOL ABOUT THIS: I WAS JUST ON THE TUBE WITH MARK GATISS.

_Out_ was to the Yard, with its perpetual hustle and bustle, and Sherlock had been rehearsing the entire operation in his head, planning for every contingency and measuring precisely what he could use against Lestrade – information ("blackmail", John would probably call it), wheedling, bribery, concessions.

He knew every turn, every potential protest, every counter move, by the time the lift doors slid shut behind them.

He had planned for every single change of circumstance – except for Lestrade not being on shift.

Sherlock felt circuits stalling, blinking rapidly as he tried to account for new information, plan around it, but he was too slow – even for him – and they were being ushered into Hassard's office by Hassard herself, the door click shut decisively behind them.

"You've been told to stay out of this," she said, putting her desk between them, fists resting on the dark wood like little barriers of their own, eyes fixed on Sherlock to exclude John from the warning – or the accusation.

"There's no–"

"Greg's _told_ you, Sherlock," she snapped. "This isn't our case."

He drew a deep breath to retort, arguments already lining up, personal observations flickering through his thoughts without any effort – and those stopped him, made him pause, because there was some subtle shift in her stance without any real movement, some nearly hidden light in her eyes.

"But Greg isn't my boss, and you're not a Met officer," she continued. "What do you want?"

"To talk to the wife," Sherlock replied promptly. Now Hassard did look at John, a silent question that made Sherlock huff, because John wasn't responsible for speaking on his behalf – even if it did sometimes make it easier when dealing with idiots – but no one took his protestations seriously, as if John was somehow the arbiter of rationality.

Little did anyone know.

John made some small acquiescing gesture, as if to suggest that it might help, and Sherlock swallowed a disgusted snort.

 _Of course_ it would help.

"I'll see what I can do," Hassard said. "And you'll wait here. _Both_ of you. _Without_ touching any case files."

John made Sherlock behave – it was grating, to be unsupervised in a DI's office but unable to take advantage of it. And John was being disgustingly reasonable, disregarding Sherlock's caustic comments about loyalty to (or perhaps perceived threat from) his sister's girlfriend.

Any attempts to get up and make even a cursory examination were met with a suggestion that if Sherlock chose to do so, he might consider how long he'd like to be sleeping on his own. Deterred, Sherlock settled, not above glaring reproachfully at his obstinate partner (who, gallingly, was ignoring him without any apparent effort).

He fidgeted, tugging at his cuffs and trousers, actually twiddling his thumbs, vainly wondering how to make inane small talk with John if only to pass the time, but not succeeding in puzzling it out. Hassard's return was a relief, and John finally let Sherlock up when she beckoned them to join her.

"You're in luck," she said. "She wants to speak to you."

"Of course she does," Sherlock sniffed, not deigning to acknowledge John's derisive snort or Hassard's raised eyebrows.

"I remind you that her husband is missing," Hassard said, tone boarding on sharp. "Be nice."

"Nice won't find her husband," Sherlock said, letting his voice dip with chilly disdain.

"Nor will being an arsehole," Hassard replied.

"He can't help it," John said. "It's part of his charm."

Hassard rolled her eyes but led them to another office – obviously unassigned to any particular officer if the lack of personal touches was any indication. Hassard greeted Georges' wife – Juliette Arnaud, Sherlock knew from the files – in passable French, with only the briefest flicker of her eyes aiming a caution at Sherlock. He nodded, glancing at John who shrugged – Sherlock would, of course, be able to translate the entire conversation for the doctor's benefit after the fact.

"Remember, nice," Hassard muttered under her breath as Sherlock moved past her to sit in front of the monitor.

The woman on the other side was no surprise to him – he'd seen photographs, both online on their respective social media sites, and from the co-opted French files. More tired now, of course, with dark circles smudging the skin beneath her eyes, dark hair that was always elegantly swept up in the pictures now uncurling from the hasty bun.

"Can you find him?" she demanded before Sherlock could even draw a breath. "Mister Holmes, can you find my husband?"

Sherlock barely hesitated, aware that any delay might bring intervention from Hassard, who certainly hadn't been expecting this. But _this_ was what he'd been waiting for, this chance, a real link to the case, someone on the inside who wanted – _needed_ – him there.

"Yes," he said.

Arnaud's shoulders sagged, sudden relief filling her features, underlain by a haunted tension. It was one thing for him to say yes, another to actually do it, and nothing would change for her, not really, until Georges was safely back home.

And Sherlock intended to see that Georges _was_ safely returned home. The entire situation was insulting enough as it was; he was hardly about to settle for anything less than complete victory.

"What do you need?" she asked.

"Everything," Sherlock replied. "Everything about that night, about the last five months–"

"Why five months?" she asked.

"He showed you the letter? The one that was faked and sent to me?"

"Yes, of course."

"That was five months ago. Everything around that time – anything unusual, and I mean anything, Ms Arnaud, even if he changed the colour of his socks or drank one more cup of coffee each day. Everything about the book, if there was anything strange about the story, anything deviation from how he'd written before, anything odd about his publisher or editor or unusual guests at book signings."

"You," she said bluntly. "You were unusual, Mister Holmes."

"I know," Sherlock said, unable to keep the curt tone from his voice.

"It was all he talked about," Arnaud said, expression softening. "He was like a kid at Christmas. He kept saying he wished he'd thought to ask for a photograph."

"Tell me who he told, about our visit. Everything you can remember, Ms Arnaud. _Anything_ , no matter how insignificant it seems."

She did, and Sherlock listened, committing it all to memory, pulling it all apart – every word, every intonation, every meaning, fragmenting all of it down to its frustratingly meaningless components. Arnaud answered each of his interrupting questions, hanging onto patience with tight fists, and he could see John doing the same, curling and uncurling his fingers like he did when he wasn't sure what to do, couldn't do anything at all.

Sherlock wavered internally when the sensation of _nothing_ struck a familiar chord – it was like meeting _her_ , the Woman, when no information had registered, his mind suddenly a blank slate letting him down. He'd seen all of John's hints then – and still could now, and Hassard's, and even Arnaud's on the end of the Skype connection.

Georges hadn't been a mystery to him – confusing, yes, but Sherlock had been able to read all the author's signs, even if he hadn't known what to make of them.

But this…

He felt wind whisper over his skin, saw the spiral of stars above him – and locked down the memory fast before it could get a grip on his nerves, show on his face.

There was _always_ something. Looking back, he could see it on the Woman's face (fineness of the lines around her eyes putting her in her mid-thirties, makeup expertly applied, right-handed, expensive brands, just a hint of professional – artificial – tanning, no more than a mere suggestion, deception in her eyes, on the surface and buried), and if he could see that now, he could find something in Arnaud's words.

He pressed her when she said she couldn't remember anymore, letting up only when it was apparent that it was really true.

"I need anything you can send me," he said. "Documents. Passport, travel schedules, flight itineraries, birth certificates, your marriage certificate, whatever you can think of. Emails, letters, texts he sent you. Anything. Everything."

Arnaud nodded, weary, the dark circles beneath her eyes even deeper than they had been when he'd sat down in front of her, two countries away.

"Yes, of course. Alex was– Alex _is_ very organized that way." It wasn't the first time she'd caught herself. Sherlock had no intention she should have to change her vocabulary permanently. "Always keeps electronic versions of those things. Scans. I will send them."

"As soon as you can."

"Within the next hour."

It gave him time to dictate their entire conversation to his phone, and to John and Hassard, who were both making notes. Sherlock scanned each word as he spoke it, pulling it apart again, refusing to give into frustration. It wouldn't help. Would cloud his judgment. He needed that now, clear and focused, needed to keep himself open to any possibilities, to follow any path his mind led.

Dangerous.

In Wales it had kept leading him into the past, and he'd ignored it. To his detriment.

If it led him back to Wales now, he'd have to let it.

He wasn't sure if he could. Not with Hassard here. Not outside of Baker Street.

It was never safe but the only time it was barely tolerable was at home, alone, with John. Where no one could see the weakness but someone else who had lived it, where Sherlock could hold make a physical connection, hold onto John to prove that John was real.

But the rules had changed.

If he knew that now, he wouldn't be blind-sided if it came up.

He hoped.

The documents were enough of a distraction when they came through – Arnaud hadn't been overstating her husband's organizational skills. Were all writers this organized? Certainly John wasn't. Under different circumstances, it might have been baffling but wading through a sea of papers wasn't unfamiliar. Hassard made a pointed comment about printing at the taxpayer's expenses; John reminded her they both paid their taxes. She rolled her eyes, refusing the stack that was pushed her way, said she had work of her own she had to do. Duty. Responsibility.

Her absence was a relief and a burden – it was easier with just John, but one less person made more work for them. Some nameless constable was dispatched to provide them with coffee, which Sherlock ignored and John indulged in, the sound of papers rustling intermittently interrupted by the click of the mug on the desk.

Pieces slotted together, but all of the wrong ones – everything in front of him, spread out like a wave, bolstered what Arnaud had told them, painted a picture, but not the picture he needed. Nothing matched up – if Sherlock hadn't known better, he'd have guessed Georges had been mistakenly targeted, the wrong man in the wrong place. The whim of a random crime, but this wasn't random and it wasn't a whim.

Not if _she_ had taken him.

She did nothing without a reason.

And he was back at the beginning again, unable to puzzle her out.

Until it changed, from one second to the next, with one faint inhalation and John said "Sherlock" in _that tone_ , the one that said "this is odd" underneath the sound of Sherlock's name and John was passing a paper across the desk, expression befuddled, and the blank space on the birth certificate leapt out at him, screaming like a siren.

Mother: Marie Charlotte Russeau.

Father:

_Nothing._

Sherlock let it speak to him, suspending the moment just long to keep John from interrupting, then scattered the papers in front of him again, pulling out another copy of George's birth certificate.

Mother: Marie Charlotte Russeau.

Father: Patrick Daniel Georges.

Marriage certificate for the parents dated when Alexandre Georges had been fourteen months old.

It wasn't unheard of. Perhaps more common now. Cold feet on the father's part? The mother giving him an out if he'd wanted it. He had decided not to take it.

There was no adoption certificate in their piles.

But things got lost. Slipped through the cracks. No scanners back then, and a fourteen month old baby would hardly insist on keeping accurate records.

"Get Amanda," he said to John, who obeyed without question. Hassard came back, managed to get him set up with Arnaud again. No time to hate the tenuous hope in her eyes, no time to play into it or reassure her.

"Alexandre's father," he said. "His _real_ father. Tell me who he is."


	3. Chapter 3

There was a sister.

Of course, that wasn't particularly surprising. The fact that Georges hadn't cared to investigate his biological father's family scarcely meant that family didn't exist.

Nor was it particularly surprising that Georges was younger than the sister by nearly three years. The emotional complications that other people heaped upon themselves were always tedious and very often ridiculous, but Sherlock had to admit – privately, because doing so out loud would only have it repeated back to him at inopportune moments – that it did help sustain his career.

What _was_ unexpected was the sharp reduction in the size of the family Georges had never bothered with. There had been, at one point, another sister, the father, and the father's wife.

All three of whom had died twenty-one years previous when their vehicle had hit a patch of ice in the French Alps and careened into another car before smashing into an outcropping.

That had distressed John, as these details so often did, but what troubled Sherlock was that the older sister, who had been a mere seventeen years old when her family had died, had effectively vanished.

"Can you blame her?" John asked, pensive expression tinged with sadness that irritated Sherlock – John didn't know this woman or her dead family, so what possible reason could he have to feel any sorrow over deaths that were two decades old? As a doctor, John should know better to become emotionally entangled other people's issues.

But whatever distinction John made between himself and his patients never seem to extend to Sherlock's clients. Sherlock restrained himself from pointing out this character flaw; he had no desire to start a row – and they hardly had the time for one – nor did he want to dredge up old accusations about his lack of compassion.

"Yes," he snapped. "Her brother is missing and she could be invaluable in figuring out why he was targeted and where he might be."

"She doesn't know about him, Sherlock," John said. "How could she know anything about what happened?"

"Based on Georges not knowing about her, you conclude she doesn't know about him? Dangerous and simplistic, John – for all we know, she's known about him his entire life and has something to do with all of this."

"Why would she–"

"I'm not saying she does," Sherlock sighed. "I'm saying we could draw that conclusion just as reasonably as yours _because_ we don't know! If she were accessible, I could get the information needed to make an informed conclusion but I can't, because she doesn't have the consideration to exist _anywhere_."

"Her entirely family died when she was barely more than a kid," John pointed out. "Maybe she wanted to get away from that."

"And now another family member of hers is in peril and she's avoiding that, too! No social media, not even an email address in her name! This isn't simply a case of escaping her unfortunate past – she actively doesn't _want_ to be found."

John shrugged slightly from behind his laptop and Sherlock shot him a glare across the desks. Hassard had unceremoniously evicted them from the Yard after Sherlock had managed to wrangle the information he'd needed from French lawyer who had handled Georges' adoption.

If pressed, he might have admitted it had been generous of her to let them stay as long as she had – but it would have been more so if she hadn't forced them out. Some pointed remarks from John had prevented Sherlock from fully developing his observations that she was only sending them home to avoid having to explain the situation to Lestrade.

"We don't have time for two missing people," he snapped.

"There's nothing you can do about her," John replied. Sherlock drew a breath to deliver a caustic retort but swallowed it quickly when his partner raised his eyebrows with that infuriating knowing look he wore when he had something he hadn't yet shared and spun his laptop around. "But we could probably talk to her cousin."

Sherlock's eyes raked over the Facebook profile: Isabelle Lassalle, early to mid-forties, short red hair, hazel eyes, pictures selected to reflect someone who appeared both refined and outdoorsy, professional (publisher, according to the information), married, no children, possibly owned a cat.

And lived in London.

"Get your things," Sherlock said, reaching for his mobile as he stood. "Let's go."

* * *

"Should I be jealous?"

Sherlock deigned to raise his eyes from his phone to glance at John across the small space that separated them in the back of the cab.

"Or worried?" John continued. "I'm sure that could be considered stalking."

"We need to know where she is, John," Sherlock sighed. "I don't need to remind you that we don't have the luxury of time. There's no sense showing up at her flat if she's not going to be there."

The comment sobered John and kept him from suggesting that Sherlock's normal pattern was to show up wherever he thought someone else should be and expect them to plan their lives according to his whims.

It was annoying how often that worked, but it was even more worrying that Sherlock was going out of his way to ensure they met their contact this time.

"We may need your expertise in this area," Sherlock said, stowing his mobile into his suit jacket pocket. He'd already given the cabbie Lassalle's home address, and had apparently satisfied himself that she was there.

"I don't think she needs a doctor," John pointed out.

"That's hardly your only area of expertise," Sherlock replied, arching an eyebrow at the doctor. "I'm more than happy to admit that women are your area and not mine."

A little traitor thought at the back of John's mind piped up with the very unwanted opinion that Sherlock should have remembered that when dealing with Irene Adler.

It wasn't fair and John knew it – Sherlock had never liked any of John's girlfriends, and there was no reason John should like someone who'd had – whatever it was she and Sherlock had had together.

It was obvious, now, that on Sherlock's part, that had been jealousy, pure and simple.

John was more than willing to admit jealousy on his part, too, but it had been more than that. Sherlock had never had reason to mistrust John's girlfriends, but John had never trusted the Woman further than he could have thrown her.

Even that was probably too far.

"Women and medicine," John said, keeping the rest to himself. "Got it."

"There are other things, too," Sherlock murmured.

"Are there?" John asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Oh yes," Sherlock replied. "You're very good at sex."

John caught the cabbie's eyes flicker up to meet his in the rear-view mirror and covered his face with a hand, half hoping to conceal the sudden heat in his cheeks and hide himself from the pointed look.

"Jesus," he muttered. "Maybe not in public?"

"One person is hardly public," Sherlock said, blithely unconcerned – as usual – with any notions of privacy or decency. "In Paris–"

"Yeah, you can shut it _right now_ ," John interjected, rolling his eyes with a sigh when the corners of Sherlock's lips curled upward. Of course Sherlock wasn't being oblivious about it, but doing it deliberately to push John's buttons.

"Here is fine," his inconsiderate partner said to the cabbie, who pulled over smoothly and with what John thought was an expression of relief.

He clambered out of the car after Sherlock, surprised to see they were still a short walk away – probably only a few minutes – and wondered if this was the detective's concession to their relationship even in the midst of a case.

More likely it was because Sherlock didn't want whoever might be observing them to catch onto their destination just yet.

"Don't look so dejected," Sherlock said breezily, turning away with the obvious expectation that John would follow. "It's both. And I meant what I said. You are very good–"

"Yep, got it," John interrupted, feeling his cheeks redden again. "Thanks."

He drew a deep breath, steeling himself.

"So are you," he said, taking care not to mutter – Sherlock wasn't ignorant to the fact that talking about this always embarrassed John, but it was important to get it right all the same.

Sherlock cast him an inscrutable look, eyebrows raised, then dropped the subject, to John's relief. It didn't really surprise him that his partner picked the best inappropriate moments to talk about it, but he didn't want to focus any insecurities either of them might sometimes have, not when Alexandre's life was at stake.

And certainly not when Irene Adler seemed to be involved.

The brush of fingertips on his lower back made John pause and glance back, but Sherlock was looking up towards a set of windows that wouldn't have been remarkable aside from the fact that they opened into the Lassalle's flat.

"Here we go," Sherlock said. "Shall we?"

* * *

"A son? Are you sure?"

John had been watching Lassalle carefully since they'd arrived, a very different type of observation than Sherlock's deductive scrutiny. He'd always relied as heavily on this – perhaps more so – than he had on John's skill with medicine and women.

John was good with people, knew how to talk to them, to get them to warm to him. Sherlock could (and often did) fake it, of course, and he would concede to the occasional genuine sense of connection, but he didn't have the patience to sustain it without good cause.

A man's life was on the line; there was no time for dithering or sympathy, but somehow, John could work these things in without it wasting more time than necessary, without a client or witness or suspect shutting down altogether.

Isabelle Lassalle, however, didn't require much finesse; Sherlock had intuited that immediately. Even now, faced with the fact that her uncle – her father's brother – had had an affair that had produced a hitherto unknown child, she seemed more surprised than shocked.

"We are," Sherlock said, extending her a photograph of Georges. Her eyes flickered down to it, expression neutral at first, shifting almost immediately to alarm, and John shifted beside him, not touching Sherlock but the movement catching part of his awareness, reading it for the response, noting the proximity.

"This is Alexandre Georges!" she said, looking back up, pale features noticeably paler now, eyes bright with the shock that had been missing at the revelation of a new family member.

"You know him?" Sherlock demanded.

"He's that missing man from Paris! It's been all over the news there – I may not live there anymore, Mister Holmes, but I still have family there and I keep up with what happens. And yes, at it happens – ridiculous as it sounds – I _do_ know him. I mean, I've met him, a handful of times."

"You're in publishing," John said, realization finally dawning. Sherlock had drawn the connection already but had dismissed it almost as soon as it had formed; her company wasn't Georges', and he'd checked for any links between the two in the cab on the trip here but had come up empty.

"I am, but we don't publish him. I've read some of his novels," she gestured vaguely at the built in bookshelves behind her in the airy living room, the shelves themselves overflowing with books, sometimes two deep, or stacked on one another, an obvious contrast to the otherwise uncluttered, ordered space. "A couple book launches, some parties…"

"When was the last time you saw him?" Sherlock demanded.

"Maybe two years ago – it's not as though we knew each other well at all. We're really cousins?" For a moment, he heard the suggestion of her nearly vanished French accent, gone as soon as it came.

Lassalle shook her head before he could answer again, or before John could elbow him in the ribs to prevent him for a helpful remark that would hurry this whole thing along.

"Well, Robert always had a very high opinion of himself, so maybe this is not so much of a surprise. But why would someone kidnap him? Do you think it's tied to us? Our family I mean?"

"Yes," Sherlock replied, making no effort to keep the bite out of his voice despite the warning look John shot him. They didn't have time to dance around the truth.

"How?"

"If we knew that, we'd hardly be here. I need to contact his sister. Your cousin."

"Amélie?"

Sherlock gave a sharp nod, impatient, annoyed when Lassalle shook her head.

"You must have some way of contacting her," he insisted.

"I hear from her sometimes," Lassalle said. "Not often, maybe one or twice a year – if that."

"You weren't close growing up?" John asked.

"A bit, but closer to Julie – her sister. Ame was always more – I'm not sure. Independent? Very private. But after the accident, she checked out. She tried, I think, but I think she'd always seen us as extra to her family and she couldn't replace them with us. So she left."

"To where?" Sherlock demanded.

"Everywhere, for a while. She lives in Argentina now – or at least she did when I last heard from her."

"So you _do_ have some means of contacting her."

"Well I have an email address – several, actually. She changes them the way other people change clothing. She was always like that though, easily distracted. Bored."

It made her harder to pin down, too, but Sherlock kept that observation to himself; if Amélie Lassalle hadn't been interested in her father's family after losing her own, there was no reason she'd want to make herself easily accessible to them now.

"Let me get my phone. She's sent me a few postcards and photos as well – do you want those?"

"Yes," Sherlock said, at the same time John replied, "Please." The doctor raised his eyebrows when Lassalle vanished toward the back of the flat; Sherlock scowled back, wishing it were cool enough outside to wear his coat. John never felt quite short enough in the summers, and it was less effective to jam his hands into his trouser pockets and huff – somehow, the action lacked authority like that.

Lassalle came back, passing her phone to Sherlock, who passed it to John to note down the email address. If Amélie had stopped using it, its utility would be limited to them – but it was better than nothing.

Possibly.

The postcards were a handful of typical tourist scenes, mostly from South America – among them, Sherlock recognized Machu Picchu and Rio de Janeiro – but a few were from other major global landmarks: the Great Wall of China, Tokyo, the Great Barrier Reef.

Whatever Amélie Lassalle had been looking for, she'd certainly travelled extensively to find it.

The messages on the backs of the postcards were fairly generic, written in a lazy scrawl, all in French. There seemed to be some genuine affection there, the type Sherlock would associate with someone who wasn't trying to leave a dead family behind, who thought fondly of her cousin and would send a small note about a place she'd describe in more detail later.

But perhaps that was simply a way of keeping her family at bay, making it seem like she cared enough to do reach out if only to avoid further contact.

The last picture was a photograph, older, from the late nineties or early two thousands, before digital cameras were ubiquitous. The subject – a woman – was young, her long dark hair framing her face, squinting slightly at whoever was taking the picture, smiling despite the sun in her eyes. The background was a generic beach in a generic coastal city – Sherlock could have figured out where precisely had been important, but it wasn't the location it mattered, it was the young woman, recognizable despite the faded colours in the photograph, despite the years that had passed since the captured moment.

His immobility made John look up at him, then peer over his shoulder at the photograph, and Sherlock felt his partner's shock, the way it warred with confusion and disbelief – denial even, because John wouldn't want this to be real, would want to be wrong this time, but he wasn't.

"Jesus Christ," his partner murmured, and Sherlock could feel Isabelle Lassalle's confused gaze flickering between them, trying to divine what was wrong, not comprehending. He wanted to crumple the photograph in his fist, hide the reality from John, but that was unproductive and would scarcely have made a difference now; John had seen it and knew. "Sherlock, that isn't– Is that–"

"Yes," Sherlock said, keeping his eyes on the photograph, because anything was better than looking at his partner right now, "It's Mary."


	4. Chapter 4

"I don't understand!"

Sherlock pressed his palms together, fingertips touching his nose, as he paced the flat, thoughts racing down branching pathways, trying to find elusive connections.

"It doesn't make any sense!" John's protest cut through the sleeting deductions but Sherlock barely noticed; some small part of him always insisted on being aware of John and he'd realized ages ago it was better just to let it – it allowed the rest of his brain to focus on the problem. "Why would she take Mary's brother? What's the point?"

What _was_ the point? The question chased itself around in Sherlock's mind – there was no obvious solution but there _was_ a reason, even if it was unknown to him. Some connection, some tenuous link drawing the Woman and Mary together via Alexandre Georges.

"Do you think he was involved in any of this?" John asked. "Maybe working for her – Irene Adler I mean?"

Sherlock heard the reluctance in John's voice, as if naming her was as good as summoning her. He gave his head a sharp shake, refocusing on his partner.

"No." It wasn't a guess, it wasn't just a possibility – he was certain Georges had nothing to do with this. He was a man trapped by a family he didn't know and _that_ was where the connection lay. A mystery author whose own life had been – until recently – a relatively placid read, ignorant of characters behind the scenes of his own biology.

He'd never cared to know them, but now it seemed they cared to know something about him.

"You said she wasn't working for her. I mean Adler. For– Mary."

"No," Sherlock said again. Even if he'd been uncertain about the rest of the details, he was certain about this. Mary's actions spoke for her: two madmen faded into nothing more than memory when they became too unpredictable to be assets.

Her world was ordered, a control she dictated and imposed. No room for those who had lost their usefulness, no concessions for those who trod their own path rather than hers.

Mary Morstan did not play games.

The Woman did.

It hit him suddenly, freezing him in place, halfway through a step, and he was dimly aware of John demanding to know what it was and of the way his partner silenced himself – reluctantly but knowing it was important to do so – when Sherlock held up a hand.

He fixed his attention on John, aware of the way it made his partner shift, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. The doctor's gaze flickered away before being drawn back up by Sherlock's unflinching one, muscles in John's jaw and neck working as he swallowed, steeling himself.

Sherlock ignored the faint displeasure at causing John any unease; he needed the focus more than he needed John to be comfortable. Every sense was deliberately turned to his partner's presence, not just the sight but the smell and the feel, the way John changed the air merely by being there.

And he _was_ there. Solid. Real. He'd been in their bed that morning, he'd been with Sherlock at the Yard and in the cab and at Lassalle's. He was here now, some understanding flickering through his blue eyes, and Sherlock loathed the fact that it was John who took a step forward to close the gap between them, John who reached out and caught his wrist, John's fingers that tightened with a brief, reassuring squeeze.

He hated the fact that he couldn't do it, make that small yet immense gesture – the inability was weakness, he knew that even if his own brother would have called it a strength.

But it didn't matter to John.

"Yeah?" John asked. Sherlock twisted his wrist slightly in John's loose grip, wrapping his own fingers around John's arm, feeling the steady beat of a pulse against his skin. He nodded once, the action more certain than he was, and let his mind skirt around the contours of memories that weren't nearly old enough for his liking.

Mary didn't play games.

The Woman did.

He was certain it was all there, waiting for him, bits and pieces that needed to be put together the way he'd been trying to do in Wales, and preventing himself at every turn for fear of what the memories might do.

But John was here, right here, and Georges was not.

She had taken him and this _was_ a game – at least to her.

And Georges wasn't the first person she'd taken.

Sherlock's eyes slid away from John's, narrowing unconsciously, letting the observation take him where it wanted – even when where it wanted was an abandoned and crumbling stone hut on a desolate Welsh hillside. He tightened his grip on John's wrist, reaffirming the reality, unable to ignore the memory of desperation as he'd sought John out in the darkness, then again, more systematically but just as futilely, in the daylight.

That had been a game too, of sorts.

Plucking him and John from London, dropping them, separated, into the wilderness. Sherlock had had Lestrade but the Woman had known what losing John would do.

Three days hounded by a smothering fear – terror – that John had been taken away from him permanently and irrevocably. That this, what he held onto right now, was as insubstantial as mist, not really his, out of his control.

Three days locked in his own mind trying to escape the suffocating possibility.

Sherlock would have figured it out faster if he'd been with John, and John would have got them home faster if they'd been together. His deductive skills combined with John's army training. Solutions and survival.

But the delay hadn't been for him, not really.

Removing them had drawn Mycroft's gaze away from London.

Long enough to…

"Oh," Sherlock said without hearing himself, aware that he must have spoken only by the shift in John's stance, the slight change in pressure of fingertips on his skin.

Because they'd come back and there had been a faked letter in French, one body in place of another, a forgotten tunnel beneath the heart of London.

And the writing on the wall.

Not writing, no – symbols, meaningless at the time but linked directly to Alexandre Georges via the cover of his latest novel, and Alexandre Georges linked directly to Mary Morstan via the accident of blood.

Nothing had been stolen from Mycroft – nothing physical. That would have been obvious.

Whatever it had been, Mycroft had never even known he'd had it.

None of them had.

Until now.

Sherlock hadn't taken the bait with the letter but the Woman would have other resources at her disposal. A name somehow linked back to Mary, the connection unclear… He would have uncovered it if he'd been interested in France when it had first come up, and he would have led her right where she'd wanted to go.

He'd passed up the chance – unknowingly – but it didn't matter because she'd solved the riddle anyway and taken Georges as neatly and as silently as she'd taken them.

"But why?" John asked, pulling Sherlock back to the present, relieved he'd had the presence of mind to speak as he was thinking and save them the time it would have taken to go over it again.

"I don't know," Sherlock replied.

John looked slightly surprised by the admission but Sherlock ignored him; there was too much at stake for pretences, and what he didn't know yet, he would learn.

"She doesn't know either." Sherlock heard the words before he'd registered the realization behind them, aware that John's expression had shifted to confusion. The doctor shook his head, a short, sharp military movement.

"Who doesn't know what?" the doctor asked.

"Mary. She doesn't know about Georges."

"What?" John demanded. "No! You told me not two hours ago that it was a stupid assumption–"

"A dangerous and simplistic conclusion, John. And it was. It's not now."

"Oh yes, because now _you've_ thought of it?"

"Because we have _facts_ , John! Two hours ago we didn't know that Amélie Lassalle and Mary Morstan were the same person. We didn't know who Georges' biological sister was."

"So what? How does that change Mary knowing? You said it yourself: just because Alexandre Georges didn't bother to find out about her doesn't mean she wouldn't have found out about him – or that she hadn't known her whole life!"

"Of course she knows who Alexandre George is," Sherlock sighed, silencing John's attempted protest with an abrupt gesture. " _Listen_ to me, John. Mary knows who he is because she follows the news and she follows us. Yes, yes she does." He tightened his grip on John's wrist slightly, not enough to be threatening but enough to stop his partner from pulling away. There was no time for the finesse the situation needed, no time to spare John's feelings or indulge the doctor's anger on his sister's behalf.

"You know she does, John. Using the same means Moriarty did, because he was her man. But _not_ in the same way. Not for the same reasons."

"And that makes it all fine, does it?" John snapped. "The criminal mastermind that used my sister is keeping tabs on us and you know that and you're happy to let it happen?"

"How am I supposed to stop it?" Sherlock asked. "Would you stop writing your blog? Would you stop working? Would you have me stop working? Would you have us stay in the flat without leaving for the rest of our lives? I can't stop it, John, because it would mean going through everyone in London – and then beyond – but she is, as you said, keeping tabs. Nothing more. No, don't argue! She knew we went to Paris and she knew we met Georges there – possibly she doesn't know about the letter. Hard to say. She _does_ know he's missing now, but she doesn't know _why_."

"How can you be sure?" John demanded.

"Because if someone like Mary had a family member stolen, we'd have felt it by now. She wouldn't let anything stand in her way of getting him back, not if he meant something to her. London's underworld would be bleeding, John, but right now, it's no more unsettled than it normally is. Mary knows a French author we've met is missing, but she doesn't know who he is to her. She may not even know who's taken him."

"So why bother then? Why take him if there's no connection between Alexandre and Mary – or between Mary and Adler for that matter?"

"We don't know there's not. I said the Woman wasn't working for Mary. There's obviously a connection."

"Obvious now," John commented sardonically.

"Yes," Sherlock agreed, keeping the sigh out of his voice if only to avoid a row they couldn't afford. "Obvious now."

He closed his eyes, trying to concentrate, a traitor thought snaking through his mind, artfully dodging his attempts to ignore it. Carefully, Sherlock disentangled himself from his partner's grasp so he could pace the living room again, hoping in vain that the familiar textures beneath his shoes would distract him, help him build a rationale against this terrible idea.

But there was no way around it, not this time.

If he didn't try, it was one powerful lead not followed and as much as he despised the disloyalty to John, Sherlock could not let that outweigh another man's life.

He paused, back to his partner, taking a slow breath to savour one last moment before he had to ask his of John, then turned back, using another deep breath to steel himself.

"John, I have to talk to her."

The shock in John's blue eyes was mirrored in his stance, the way he tensed and drew back slightly, as if he could distance himself from the reality. As if not comprehending – or not wanting to – could change what had to be done.

"What–?" he asked. "Do you mean– to the Woman?"

"No," Sherlock said. "To Mary."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The poem in this chapter was written ages ago for this story by an author formerly known as Writinginmargins who has since left the fandom :( I was hoping to use it much earlier than now, but write much more slowly than I used to!

"Are– are you bloody serious?"

Even now, he wouldn't have put it past Sherlock – a flat, poorly timed joke or some impromptu experiment just to see how John would react. But there was that look of reluctant firmness that John had seen for years and had only recently recognized for what it was. Sherlock's lips parted slightly, as if he were about to speak, before he silenced himself, eyes flickering over John's face.

"You want to talk to her," John said flatly. " _Mary_."

Sherlock nodded, pursing his lips slightly, gaze locked with John's.

"Jesus Christ," John muttered, managing to disentangle himself from his partner enough to turn away for a few seconds before the sheer stupidity of the situation pulled him back. "You want to talk to _her_? You want to _talk_ to her, Sherlock? No. No! This is insane!"

"John–"

"What the bloody hell are you thinking! You want to _talk_ to _Mary_? How's that going to work, Sherlock? She's the bloody head of– I don't even know, some kind of international mafia! Are you just going to ring her up and have a chat?"

"Of course not–" Sherlock tried.

"Of course not!" John shouted back. "Of course you're bloody not because of all the _stupid_ ideas you've ever had, this one _really_ takes the fucking cake, doesn't it?"

"Her brother is missing."

"I know that! The whole bloody world knows that now! And _you_ know who took him – so what, you're just going to drop us into the middle of this, between Adler and Mary, because everything involving Adler has worked out _so well_ for you hasn't it?"

John knew he'd hit a mark; the way Sherlock drew back slightly was enough of an indication, but he didn't care. He also knew Sherlock knew it was true – Moriarty, Adler, they each added up to the same thing in Sherlock's mind.

That chilling challenge he craved, because it took the place of cocaine and boredom.

And John had always gone willingly, because he needed the same thing.

But not this time.

"It's not about me," Sherlock said.

"It is for me!" The words were out of John's mouth before the shock that registered when Sherlock's statement finally did.

Sherlock looked startled, grey eyes going wide, and John felt suspended for a moment, caught by the realization he thought he'd buried – that the Woman could so easily pull Sherlock back into her trap and that he would go, almost willingly, for the chance of that dangerous distraction.

"What do you mean it's not about you?" John demanded, refusing to let himself redirect the conversation, because there was no way in _hell_ he was saying what he'd just thought – the last thing Sherlock needed was anything that resembled permission from John, even it wasn't.  "She's been playing with you this whole time, Sherlock! Wales! Richard Douglas and Karam Sarraf! Those symbols in the tunnel! The letter!"

"Yes!" Sherlock snapped, and the agreement sent a flare of irritation through John, because it could mean more argument. "But it was about _Mary_ , John! Georges was what Mycroft had that he didn't know he had– that link to Mary that even Mary didn't know about! The rest of it, Wales and the symbols, that was–"

"That was what, Sherlock?" John growled, hands tightening into fists. Sherlock looked startled, deer-in-the-headlights, as if his brain had just caught up with his mouth. "You _know_ what that was. _You_ know."

A game. A stupid, sodding, reckless game.

But even if he called it that, John knew it wasn't. Not for him. Not for Lestrade. Not for everyone who'd searched frantically for them for days. Not for all the people who had died.

Not even, he knew, for Sherlock.

It was for Adler, though. Just another means to an end, to get Sherlock interested, to get him to do her dirty work. Find out why Alexandre mattered enough to make it into some information Mycroft must have had about Mary.

"And now a man's life is at stake, John."

"So _we_ find him!" John snapped back. "Why the bloody hell involve Mary?"

" _Because_ ," Sherlock spat, patience obviously unwinding at what he clearly thought was John's inability to keep up, "Mary doesn't know about Georges, but she _must_ know something about the Woman! We need to know what that is, John! We need to know what connects them!"

"So what are you going to do?" John demanded, folding his arms, shifting into a more military stance. "Ring her up and have a chat? Have her round for a cup of tea?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes, and John bit his own lip on an angry retort.

"Hardly. Her old mobile number isn't going to work anymore – nor are any of the email addresses Lassalle gave us, _especially_ if she knows we've been to see her cousin. She doesn't switch those out of boredom, John, but out of calculated necessity."

"Great," John sighed. "So what? You're the genius detective, you must have some plan."

"Your blog."

"My blog?"

"Yes, John, your blog!"

"What are we going to do with my blog, Sherlock? Should I write up a post asking Mary to call us?"

"No, of course not, don't be ridiculous. The _only_ advantage we have here is surprise."

"What?" John asked. Sherlock sighed, glancing away briefly, lips pursed in displeasure.

" _We_ know that Georges is Mary's brother and the Woman knows that, but she _doesn't_ know that we know! We can't go announcing that fact to the entire world! If she realizes that we know why he was taken, she'll alter whatever plans she has in motion and we risk not finding him."

"So we're going to do– what? Write a post with a secret code?"

"Exactly," Sherlock replied.

" _How_?"

"I don't know. Yet. Get my violin. I need to think."

* * *

The Personal Blog of

**Dr. John H. Watson**

19 August

The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword

Sherlock's in one of his I'm-not-talking-for-days-on-end moods.

I was assured (before he stopped talking, of course) that my pitiful "normal" intellect couldn't possibly keep up with the speed and sophistication of his thought process, so could I please just not pester him with inane questions and let him work so that at least _someone_ was productive, thank you very much.

Of course, it's only been a few hours, so we'll see how long it really lasts, especially when he finds out that I've been productive, too.

Did you know he writes poetry when he can't sleep?

Until now, neither did I!

Enjoy!

(Bets in the comments on how long it takes him to realize that a) I found this and b) I posted it.)

**Hesitance in Her Merry Bower**

Forthright never has she been; even so, managed to contain

elements of respectability through tender, sibilant susurrus

in the wakeful ruddiness of midevening August rainfall,

Bedclothes tugged to the pale arc of prominent collarbones.

 

Clotted cream taste glosses the mouth, which has bitten down

thoroughly on flesh of the verbose lover crowding the bed

with your hirsute legs and clammy palms dampening trousers

and private testimonies of subdermal ink on her trembling thigh.

 

Her body as a temple is washed clean and spoiled with your sweat

as you, the obtuse lover, misconstrue her dismissal as rejection,

Retiring to the guest room with heavy heart and dry mouth guilt.

Yet she comes to you in unvoiced revelry to bring you home.

 

Gooseflesh on her skin reads as swiftly as Braille and feels of just

commitment her brother accused you before of lacking in spades.

Returned to her bower of calico prints and lace-trimmed nightgowns,

Spinning wedding bands 'round your ring fingers with feverish need.

* * *

The faint chime of an alert on her phone was a welcome distraction; Mary sat back from her work, picking up her mobile, arching an eyebrow at the small screen.

She hadn't been expecting a post from John, not when Sherlock had a case on. Still, it wasn't unheard of, both before the detective's faked death and since his return, and Mary made a point to keep track of what John was thinking and what Sherlock was working on.

The post itself was unusual enough to raise eyebrows, and Mary read the introduction with sharp scepticism, surprised by the contents. She frowned, pensively, reading the poem a second time and then a third, eyes tracing meanings that might have been imagined but probably weren't.

She knew John Watson well enough – both personally and from having followed his blog since he'd met Sherlock Holmes – to know that this diversion during a case wasn't unusual. A man like Sherlock would have a proclivity for long periods of silence while he worked, and Mary was aware of the French author that had vanished shortly after Sherlock and John had been to meet him in Paris, which meant a critical case for him.

She wasn't sure what the connection was between the visit to France and the disappearance – or, indeed, if there was one – but she knew Sherlock had picked up on the case regardless. How far he'd gotten wasn't of particular concern to her; she kept tabs on him, but not on his every movement.

Generally, the result of his investigations was enough information for her.

But perhaps not this time.

Because, while John posting during one of Sherlock's working silences wasn't unusual, the poem was.

Everything she knew about Sherlock Holmes – and that knowledge was extensive – suggested he was _not_ the kind of person to write poetry in the depth of the night when sleep was elusive, and he had nothing else to do.

Play the violin, perform some experiment (with the possibility of an explosion making it all the more attractive), take to the streets to glean information from his homeless network – all of those things were habits he practiced routinely.

But his writing was scientific, clear, concise. Mary had never pictured him as the kind of man to take a literary flight of fancy.

Which meant the poem had been deliberately written and posted – John hadn't just happened upon it and put it up to annoy the detective.

It meant something.

Mary closed her eyes, briefly, waiting for the after-image to fade from her vision, then opened her eyes again and looked at the poetry as math.

It was a code, and codes were patterns. It was directed at her, she had no doubt – doubtless Sherlock had his own ways of contacting the Woman if he so needed (not that John would ever willingly let him) and Mary knew there was no one else he had to reach clandestinely but could only contact in this way.

Whatever it was for, it was buried in the stanzas.

On the surface, it might have been written about Irene Adler; the references to the woman in the poem were suggestive enough to insinuate an intimate connection, but if Sherlock _had_ written this secretly about Adler, there would be no way he'd have left John find it, even accidentally.

A deliberate misdirection then, a poem that appeared romantic or yearning but was nothing of the sort.

Which didn't mean it wasn't about Adler – a superficial resemblance might be a means of pointing Mary in the right direction, although she could scarcely fathom why. The Woman's connection to Sherlock was an obvious one, both dangerous and enigmatic, something the detective craved and something Mary so disdained. She'd taken care to distance herself from Jim Moriarty by the time Irene Adler had insinuated herself into the periphery of Mary's world, and was far too cautious to pursue someone that high profile, even if she'd had those inclinations.

Whatever was message was buried in the poem, it went beyond the obvious association with Adler.

And, Mary knew, it had to be simple enough to deduce without being immediately apparent. The first word of each stanza meant nothing strung together, and was far too easy. The same applied to the last words.

Mary liberated a pen and notepad from a desk drawer and began trying skip combinations, jotting them down and crossing them out as she went, aware that the time she was dedicating to this was time away from other more important things.

But perhaps that was wrong.

It occurred to her that Sherlock may be baiting her, that she could be stepping into a clumsy and rather obvious trap, but the suspicion sat poorly with her, like a coat that was a size too small and made from cheap fabric.

Sherlock was trying to reach her, and it could only be for good reason because, if nothing else, John wouldn't let him get away with it otherwise.

Mary crossed off another erroneous solution, refusing to be annoyed by the apparently random results they generated. Sherlock had chosen his words very carefully; she would be as considered in her examination. Like so many things in life, it would only become problematic if emotions were involved, if it turned into a game.

She touched on it suddenly, the pattern leaping out with a sentence that made sense, at least grammatically. Multiples of four, increasing from the fourth word of the first stanza to the sixteenth word of the fourth, leaving her with a simple, but baffling, sentence:

_She has your brother_

* * *

They were hardly daring to breathe, both of them focused on Sherlock's mobile, which lay silently on the desks between them.

When it buzzed, John started slightly but visibly, pulling back as if to get away from the caller on the other end. Sherlock repressed his own reaction, reaching smoothly for the phone and put it on speaker.

"You got my message," he said by way of greeting.

There was a short pause on the other end and he could almost hear Mary calculating whether it was worth a reply or whether this was, in fact, a trap.

"Mister Holmes, I don't have a brother."

Sherlock's gaze flickered up to meet John's stormy one; the doctor's jaw was clenched in an effort to keep himself quiet. He met Sherlock's eyes, giving a curt nod, hands fisted so tightly his knuckles were white.

But a man's life was at stake, and John knew that. He would make sure Harry understood it, too.

"Unfortunately for him," Sherlock replied, "I'm afraid you do."


	6. Chapter 6

"I assure you, Mister Holmes, if I had any living siblings, I would know about them. I've been thorough in tracking those close to me, and I'm disinclined to overlook details."

Sherlock saw John's nostrils flare, the doctor's jaw working as he swallowed again a response. He held John's gaze for a moment but kept himself still otherwise, gauging that any physical contact would be received as patronizing or a suggestion of weakness rather than reassurance.

"I'm certain you are," Sherlock replied, keeping his voice level. "In this case, there were no details to overlook."

There was a drawn out silence on the other end of the line, too long for a mere pause. Sherlock exchanged another look with John, who drew a deep breath and gave a curt nod of permission.

He turned his attention back to the phone, if only because it was easier to focus on the small, unchanging piece of technology than it was to concentrate on John right now. The silence coming from the phone was expectant – perhaps even discomfited – but John's anger would be distracting if Sherlock let it be.

John would never thank him for that. Not with another person's life on the line.

He explained about Georges' parentage, deliberately keeping his tone nearly inflectionless, offering no deductions or observations. The facts they had spoke for themselves; Mary's father – or, rather, Amélie Lassalle's father – was listed only once in relation to Alexandre Georges, as his biological father in private adoption certificates.

It was clear enough that Robert Lassalle had never known, and from the picture painted by decades old documents and Georges' own incuriosity about his biological father, it seemed as though Marie Georges had never bothered – or wanted – to tell him.

There was another pause after he'd finished speaking, and Sherlock did glance at John now, seeing the doctor's hands tensed into fists, knuckles white.

"Are you absolutely certain?" Mary asked.

"A DNA test would be the most accurate means of determining it, but there seems to be little doubt."

Sherlock suspected Mary would never consent to a DNA test, but she made no move to refuse it either. It would be possible without her permission, using the items she'd left behind in her flat following her staged kidnapping.

Provided, of course, those hadn't mysteriously vanished from an evidence locker.

But it would tell them nothing they didn't already know. They had her real identity, for all the scant value it provided; aside from linking her to Georges, Sherlock knew they would get nothing else from it.

It wouldn't matter if Mary's DNA record was on file with every police department in the world. She would never put herself in a situation where that information would compromise her, let alone lead to her being apprehended.

"Someone else clearly had access to this information," Mary observed. Any surprise she might have felt at the revelation – or any frustration at not having found Georges herself – was utterly absent from her tone. Sherlock glanced at John again, wondering if the level voice belied the same sort of reaction on the other end of the line.

She had betrayed John's sister and now someone had hurt her brother. There was a beautiful irony in there, one Sherlock might have appreciated if the abduction had had anything to do with balancing that debt.

"Yes," he replied. "Irene Adler."

He heard the surprise in the silence now – it certainly hadn't been the name she'd expecting, if she'd expected any name at all. Doubtless Mary knew who was behind Wales but she couldn't have known why. If she had, Georges' existence wouldn't have been a mystery to her, and he very likely would have been protected, even without his knowledge.

"Irene Adler? And how did she come across this information?"

"Via my brother."

There was another pause, this one more thoughtful, calculating.

"I suspect your brother is not overly inclined to share sensitive information with known terrorists, Mister Holmes. I also suspect that time is not an abundant resource at the moment, so perhaps you'd like to share what you know. Quickly."

Sherlock bristled at being commanded like that, despite the obvious necessity. John met his eyes, expression like thunder. This time, Sherlock did reach out; John wrapped a hand around the detective's wrist, hard, as if clutching a lifeline. Sherlock repressed a wince, keeping his expression as neutral as his voice as he detailed everything they knew – the abduction to Wales, using their absence to turn Mycroft's gaze away from information he didn't even know he had, the murders that led them into the tunnels and to the symbols that matched the cover of George's book, the faked letter, the meeting with Georges himself.

There was nothing new in there, not for him, even as Sherlock scoured every word he spoke looking for links he might have missed. With some effort, he dampened the frustration he felt at being on the brink, knowing he was skirting next to some vital connection but unable to see it.

"Why Adler?" Mary asked when he finished, and Sherlock studiously avoided John's gaze now – this had nothing to do with him but he felt the weight of it anyway; if he hadn't been so easily captivated, so taken by the buzz of an intellectual equal, the thrill of a challenge, if he'd just kept all his wits about him… It might have been easier to step away from all of this and see if from the cool vantage point of objectivity.

It might have been harder for her to get to Georges through him.

He'd made himself vulnerable to that kind of temptation too many times – but he'd made himself more vulnerable through John.

For a moment, Sherlock understood Mycroft's constant overbearing frustration. He'd never be able to give any of it up. Not the dangerous delight. Not John. He had pressure points. Weaknesses.

But so did everyone else.

"I don't know," he replied. "I was rather hoping you would."

"You know her," Mary commented. "I don't."

That came as a surprise. He and John met each other's eyes again, nothing but startled shock passing between them.

"She worked with Moriarty. Moriarty worked for you," Sherlock pointed out.

"I know who she is, Mister Holmes. I know quite a lot of people. So did Jim. So, I'm sure, does Ms Adler. Doubtless she and I even know some of the same people, although I suspect in very different capacities. I've never met her, and until now, I haven't had the least inclination to do so. Until now, she's had nothing I want."

"Presumably that means you have something she wants," Sherlock said.

"Indeed," Mary replied crisply. "I hardly think it's a stretch to assume that you don't know what this is; you wouldn't have risked contacting me otherwise."

"We don't," Sherlock confirmed, feeling the heat of the warning glare from John, but they had little choice. Dancing around the truth only wasted time, and he still trusted Mary enough not to interfere with them unless they presented a direct threat.

The trick now, he supposed, would be avoiding presenting that threat.

The silence on the other end of the line drew out again; Sherlock held up a hand to keep John from speaking with the doctor took a deep breath. As much as he understood the necessity of moving quickly, pushing Mary would gain them nothing.

"I don't either," she finally said, and Sherlock wondered what the admission cost her – there was a trace of reluctance in her voice, faint but tangible. It wasn't a surprise either, not after she'd confirmed that she didn't know The Woman other than by name and by distant proxy through Jim Moriarty.

If she'd known what The Woman wanted, they wouldn't be having this conversation anymore than they would have if Sherlock knew.

"It seems obvious that this won't do," Mary continued. "I can hardly operate remotely, nor can you reasonably keep me on an open line all of the time. We need to work on this together, Mister Holmes."

"We do," Sherlock agreed.

John jerked, pulling away from him abruptly; Sherlock reached out like lightning, covering John's retreating hand with his own, pinning it lightly to the desk. He met his partner's gaze, holding it steady, watching the flare of rage abate into hurt and denial, unhappy realization seeping in along the corners of the doctor's expression.

"I'm going to send someone," Mary said curtly. "I need someone I can trust working with you on this, and I intend to keep the last promise I made to you – you will not ever see me again. John's been quiet throughout this conversation, but I imagine he wouldn't tolerate my presence very long."

John's nostrils flared, gaze darting to the phone, the banked anger in his eyes sparking again.

"She's someone you know," Mary continued. "She'll be with you within the hour. I'm trusting you, Mister Holmes, but not because I have no choice. Our priorities are aligned here, but I don't know Alexandre Georges, and I will protect put my people first if you force me to choose. Do you understand?"

John raised his head again, giving Sherlock a sharp nod.

"Yes," Sherlock replied. "We do."

* * *

It was less than ten minutes before the buzzer sounded, two sharp, insistent rings. John jerked at the sound, muscles tensing, hands balling into fists, relaxing only with deliberate effort when he met Sherlock's gaze. Sherlock waited until John nodded, a curt, military movement, expression hard.

He came no closer to deducing their contact's identity in the short time it took them to descend the stairs than he had while waiting for her to arrive. Any number of people flitted into and out of his life on a daily basis, and someone he knew might only be in passing or by sight.

Too many variables, not enough data.

John reached for the door first; Sherlock stopped him, covering the doctor's hand with his own. Sherlock thought John might refuse, would insist on doing this himself, but the moment passed with a slow exhalation. John gave him another nod, this one as curt as the last but less certain; the doctor's eyes darted away, the tendons in his neck tensed as he set his jaw.

It probably wouldn't matter much, but Sherlock wanted to absolve John of as much responsibility in this as he could.

Wrestling his own trepidation under control, Sherlock swung the lock and pulled the door open.

Amanda Hassard grinned back at them, the familiar smile jarring and unwanted.

The shock hit him first, like a sledgehammer, dragging confusion in its wake as rapid observations hounded him, the timing, their expectations, the way she was dressed, all registering automatically, nearly overwhelmed by horror when the pieces slotted into place because John would get right to rage and would say something, was about to say something, blue eyes bright, expression verging on dangerous–

"You're late for dinner with Harry," Sherlock said bluntly, cutting John off, aware that he was leaving his partner reeling, furious and perplexed. He felt John's eyes on him and ignored it, arching an eyebrow at Hassard, covering his own imbalance with a cool exterior. "Somewhere nice but obviously close by– you wouldn't have stopped by otherwise."

"Not far," Hassard agreed. "But Harry asked me to stop in. See how you were doing. John, you all right? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Um–" John struggled but, to his credit, didn't glance up at Sherlock for assistance. "Yeah, um, fine. Just wasn't expecting you is all."

"Clearly," Hassard said, folding her arms, giving them an infuriating half smile. "Who _were_ you expecting?"

"No one," John said, at the same time as Sherlock replied: "A contact."

Hassard raised both her eyebrows, subjecting them to her best penetrative detective's glare.

"I don't want to know," she said. "I'm off duty and late for dinner with my girlfriend." She cast John another look for good measure; the doctor had at least been able to pull himself together somewhat, but it was clear enough to Sherlock that the façade was tenuous at best.

"At least I can tell her you're both upright and breathing. There's no one in the house who's not supposed to be, is there?"

"No," Sherlock replied, shaking his head when she fixed her eyes on him. She nodded slowly, after a long moment's consideration, apparently satisfied that she wasn't leaving them in immediate danger.

"For Harry's sake, please try to _stay_ upright and breathing. Both of you. And for mine, too, frankly. I don't want to be back on duty tonight."

"I have no intentions of ruining your evening," Sherlock said crisply, pulling his wallet from his pocket and fishing out two twenty pound notes.

"What's this?" Amanda asked as he extended the money to her.

"For champagne. On us."

"You know it's a crime to bribe a police officer?"

"But not a police officer's girlfriend, I think. Enjoy. With our compliments."

"Don't think this gets you off the hook if you do something stupid," Hassard warned, but pocketed the money without any further protest.

"You never know," John said, and Sherlock ignored the relief that the doctor had found some equilibrium again. "It might someday."

"Keep on hoping, John," Hassard replied with a grin. "I'd say stay out of trouble but I doubt it would mean much. Have a good night."

"Yeah, you too," John said, and Sherlock contributed some inane farewell, watching her walk up the street, gait and posture unconcerned. When she was out of ear shot, he closed the door quickly and turned, grabbing John's arms, bring himself down closer to eye level with the doctor.

"It's not her, John! It's _not_ her."

Whatever control John had been exercising broke again, all of the confusion and fear roiling back to the surface.

"Sherl–"

" _Listen_ to me, John! It's _not_ her! The woman Mary is sending, it isn't Amanda."

"But she came–"

"And she left again. Yes, I know."

"So– what?" John demanded, the confusion suddenly finding an outlet with rage, blue eyes sparking in the dim lighting of the landing. "It was just coincidence that she showed up here after Mary said she was sending someone?"

"No," Sherlock said, shaking his head sharply when John drew a breath for a retort. "Not coincidence, John, just bad timing. She knows us, she knows the case, and she's Harry's girlfriend. She has every reason to stop by."

"So was Mary!" John shot back. "Jesus Christ, Sherlock, if Amanda's–"

"She's not, John," Sherlock said, tightening his grip slightly, thumbs digging into John's biceps. "She's not."

"How do you know?" John demanded.

"Because I checked! I checked when I first met her, and then again before I suggested she and Harry be together!"

"She could have–"

"And I asked her," Sherlock interjected.

"You don't–" John said, cutting himself off when Sherlock's words caught up with him. "What?"

"I asked her," Sherlock repeated.

"What? You mean like, are you working for the criminal mastermind who pretended to be Harry's girlfriend?"

"Yes."

John stared at Sherlock for a moment, then closed his eyes, the fear and anger draining away. Sherlock let go; John took a step back to lean against the wall, tilting his head back and pressing a hand over his eyes.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered. Sherlock stayed still, aware of the time slipping past, bringing Mary's contact closer. "Christ. She could– she could still be lying."

"She could," Sherlock agreed. "But I very much doubt it."

"How would you know?" John asked, dropping his head back down. "Sherlock, how the bloody hell would any of us know? No one knew about Mary! If she wanted–"

"I don't think she'd risk it," Sherlock said.

"Why the hell not? You said yourself she keeps tabs on us!"

"And _she_ just said that she will put her people first if we force her to choose. She wouldn't be so stupid to try that again, John."

John stared at him again before sinking into a crouch, back against the wall, hands hanging between his knees.

"Do you trust her?" he asked.

"Mary?"

"Amanda."

"Yes."

There was no hesitation in his voice, not because he needed to mask it, but because it didn't exist. He'd more than satisfied himself that Amanda Hassard was who she said she was. There was always a chance he was wrong, but Sherlock had acknowledged that and refused to doubt himself – even the smallest doubt would have John questioning it and then Harry, and he had no desire to lead John's sister down that path each time she met someone.

Sherlock held John's gaze, letting him see nothing but the certainty; the doctor finally nodded, tilting his head back and exhaling a harsh sigh.

"All right," he said, pushing himself to his feet. Sherlock scoured the words and John's expression for any hint of mistrust and finding none. "Who is it, then? The person she's sending?"

The buzzer sounded before Sherlock could reply, one long trill this time.

"Let's find out, shall we?"

John pushed himself away from the wall, tense, as Sherlock pulled the door open.

The ripple of surprise was followed by the realization that he shouldn't be so surprised – it made sense, in retrospect, that she'd been the one to find them. She looked smarter, more urbane, without the search and rescue gear, transplanted effectively from the Welsh wilderness to central London's bustling streets. He wouldn't have looked twice at her here had he not known her, but he did, and all the little cues still gave off the same signals: single, recreational tennis player, from Cardiff.

"Hello, boys," Bridget said cheerfully. "I have to say, you look a far sight better than you did last time I saw you."


	7. Chapter 7

"This is a bit of a change from last time," Bridget said, cheerfully accepting the cup of tea a stony-faced Sherlock handed to her.

The detective had pulled out all of the stops: offered her his chair, put out a plate of the poshest biscuits they had in the flat, and used their best tea service, the one with the gold trim that he took diligent care of and had retouched every time it began to fade or looked scratched.

John wondered if Bridget had any idea how livid that meant Sherlock was.

_Probably_ , he thought, because she was too determinedly sunny – but then again, she was may just have been enjoying herself immensely.

_Probably that too,_ he added, swallowing an angry comment, displacing it by curling his left hand into a fist.

He'd given up his chair to Sherlock, not out of any real desire to make sure his partner had somewhere comfortable to sit, but because it meant he was sitting further away from Bridget and therefore, somehow, further from Mary.

"Yes," Sherlock drawled, voice dark. "Consider us even."

"We always were," Bridget replied, giving him another bright smile. "I was just doing my job, after all."

Something about her tone caught John's attention – he couldn't put his finger on it, but it felt like a penny had dropped, a missing piece slotting into place from a puzzle he hadn't even known existed.

"You knew where we were," he said, the realization only really solidifying as he said it. Sherlock turned, almost in slow motion, grey-eyed gaze locking on John, and the shock that the detective hadn't figured it out nearly pinned John to his seat.

He met Sherlock's eyes just long enough for _something_ to pass between them, before they both swung their attention back to Bridget, who at least had the decency to look mildly surprised.

"Not exactly," she said.

"Not exactly?" Sherlock echoed, polished accent cold, barely restrained. Bridget raised her eyebrows and settled back into the chair, doing a very good job, John thought, of not being the least bit intimidated.

"I _am_ a search and rescue worker," she pointed out, "and you were all over the news."

"We could have been anywhere," Sherlock pointed out, his tone hard, unyielding.

"You could have," Bridget agreed, helping herself to a biscuit, annoying John with her unconcerned attitude. "But Mary doesn't like surprises, nor does she like when things doesn't go to plan."

"We aren't hers to make plans for!" John snapped.

"You call her Mary," Sherlock noted with an arched eyebrow.

"How the bloody hell is that important?" John demanded, nearly pushing himself off from his chair, perched on the edge, muscles tense and ready for a confrontation.

Bridget held up a hand, the appeal for calm sending a shock of anger through John that he swallowed on, hard.

Starting a row wouldn't help Alexandre.

"You know her as Mary, so I'll call her Mary," she said. "It hardly matters to her. And no, John, she knows she has no direct control over you, but your abduction didn't suit any of her purposes."

"So, what, if we had no worth to her, she'd just have us killed?"

"If you had no worth to her, she wouldn't have read your blog post and I wouldn't be here. There'd be no point in killing you."

John bit back on a retort when Sherlock cast him a glance; it was clear enough that Sherlock had thought this all through and was fine with it – or at least, John admitted, had made some sort of peace with it. He knew it shouldn't get under his skin but it did. Mary had broken Harry's heart and thrown her life into disarray for no reason other than to find out first hand when Sherlock returned.

She hadn't _really_ known Sherlock had still been alive, John told himself firmly. She'd just guessed.

Unlike him.

"And yes, you could have been anywhere, as far as we knew," Bridget continued. "That was part of the problem."

"So it was just coincidence that you work in the area we were dumped?" John demanded.

"Yes," she replied. "But it wasn't coincidence that there was unscheduled and non-routine helicopter activity in the area that night."

"Which you just happened to hear about," Sherlock commented.

"Search and rescue operations have contacts. More than you might suspect."

"I _suspect_ you have more than most," Sherlock said.

Bridget shrugged lightly, unconcerned.

"No one complains, Sherlock, when you get the job done. It's not the first time my extended network has come in handy." She gave them another sunny smile, making John's hands twitch. "Possibly the most important, though."

"This is more important," John snapped.

"Is it?" she asked, turning her suddenly sharp, dark-eyed gaze to him. "A mystery novelist compared to a London Met DI, a genius detective, and a military doctor? One person compared to three?"

"It is right now," Sherlock said, dropping the words like a hammer, broking no more argument – from either of them.

Bridget gave him a thoughtful look over the rim of her teacup as she took another sip. John took a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly, forcing himself not to react anymore than that.

"Right then," Bridget said. "Where do we start?"

Sherlock smiled, that cold, bright smile that never failed to send a warning chill down John's spine.

"You've got contacts," he pointed out. "Let's see what they have to say, shall we?"

* * *

"That's not how this is going to work."

Sherlock froze in the midst of hailing a cab, caught in a suspended moment in which a habitual action was disrupted. His mind stuttered, protesting the interruption, sending a surge of unexpected anger through him.

She'd met them only once before. Granted, she'd saved their lives, but that should by no means have made her an expert in his operations, let alone given her any authority over his actions.

Bridget stepped forward smoothly when a taxi pulled out of traffic, leaning past Sherlock to speak to the driver as if the detective weren't even there.

"Sorry to have stopped you," she said, acting (surely it must be acting?) utterly oblivious to the penetrating glower that would have had most people ducking for cover or stammering a profuse apology. "His mistake."

The cabbie rolled his eyes and drove off, leaving the two of them standing at the edge of the road, John looking almost forlorn and abandoned on the pavement.

"And what do you propose we do? Take the tube?" Sherlock drawled, refusing to budge; they were far enough from the flow of traffic that they were hardly in danger of being hit, and he was damned if he was going to give in – even implicitly – to her commandeering of his work.

Bridget rolled her eyes, slipping her hands casually into the pockets of her jeans but, Sherlock noted, also making no move to step off the road and back onto the pavement.

"Time isn't a luxury we have right now, Sherlock," she said, and he bristled at the obvious. He could feel each minute ticking past, decreasing the odds of the only desirable outcome.

"Well then?" he demanded.

"Haven't you ever been fooled by a cabbie?" she asked.

Sherlock locked down the impulse to respond, feeling the anger pouring off John like a physical sensation. He had, twice, and she knew that full well.

"Jim Moriarty isn't the only one who can buy off a cabbie to do what he wants," Bridget said. "Mary wants us all alive, and I intend to stay that way. I _am_ a trained search and rescue worker. You've seen my driving skills first hand." She paused to fish a set of keys out of her handbag. "Let's go."

The weight of John's gaze finally dragged Sherlock's attention to the doctor; John was clearly livid, chafing under the growing sense of being manipulated yet again.

The sensation was nearly suffocating. Years of carefully building his reputation, carving out a career for himself, yet he was constantly walking into these webs, trapped in situations orchestrated by unseen forces, being guided like a marionette on very short strings.

He could stop.

Just stop. Plain and simple.

The realization hit him like a bag of bricks, the shock so strong Sherlock was surprised he didn't stagger.

Dragged in its wake was the certainty that he _couldn't_ – not really. Not ever.

The mere idea of it was even worse than the reality that he was being toyed with, led where someone else wanted him to go.

Without _this_ there was nothing. There was no defence against the lure of cocaine, and with that came the absence of John – out of everything, _that_ was the most paralyzing prospect, that John's presence, so complete and dependable, could vanish as thoroughly as it had when they'd been tossed into the Welsh wilderness.

It would, Sherlock knew, kill him.

And Alexandre Georges.

"Coming?" Bridget asked, arching her eyebrows.

Sherlock swallowed on everything, giving a curt nod, wishing like hell for colder winter weather instead of the August warmth, so that he could flip up his coat collar and bundle his hands into his pockets, a silent protest against this ridiculous nonsense.

He didn't have that choice.

He didn't have any real choice at all.

Not this time.

He jerked his head at John, who fell in half a step behind him, following Bridget to the non-descript white sedan parked up the street. It was dirty enough not to attract any attention, but not so dirty that it stuck out on London's turbulent streets.

Without being offered, Sherlock took the front passenger's seat; he was well aware that it left his partner alone in the back, but he knew John would let him get away with it. The doctor wouldn't be thrilled, but Sherlock needed the information that only the better visual access in the front seat could give him.

And he wasn't going to knowing let anyone working for Mary trap them together. There wasn't enough data to confirm that the back doors could be opened from the inside.

"Where are we going?" John asked. Useless. As though Bridget would answer.

"City Airport," she replied, and Sherlock felt another jolt of shock nearly ground him, leaving him grateful that he was already seated. "I know a few people there. They might have heard something."

"Is that how you found us?" John demanded, and Sherlock kicked himself mentally for not having immediately made the connection.

"They helped," Bridget replied, putting the car into gear and pulling smoothly into traffic.

It bothered him that her wilderness training had prepared her for this; it was nearly as bad as learning John could drive well in London, too – that still annoyed Sherlock, who considered that driving in a war zone was no preparation for driving in one of the most civilized cities in the world.

Never mind that John had pointed out that London drivers were hardly polite or patient, and that, as a surgeon, driving had not actually been one of his routine duties in the army.

Bridget had been raised in Cardiff, Sherlock reminded himself. Surely some of her skills must have come from that experience.

And it hardly mattered now – what mattered was the potential data they were going to collect, the scant promise that they may be able to track Georges' movements after he'd left France.

Presuming he'd left France at all.

It was an infuriating sticking point; he had absolutely no information to support that Georges might be here aside from the fact that Mary was and the Woman had been, at least at one point. She must have been recently, even if only briefly, to set her convoluted plans into motion.

Sherlock knew her. As much as John would have disliked hearing that, it remained true.

He knew her. Almost inside and out.

Mary might have stepped back, orchestrated everything from a distance.

But not the Woman. She was far too hands-on for that approach.

But it didn't meant Georges was here.

Aside from his connection to Mary, there was no reason for him to be.

And, Sherlock realized abruptly, he had no guarantee that Mary herself was currently in London. As certain as he was that this was her base – Paris was significantly smaller, increasing her chances of being recognized – there was no reason she had to be here _right now_.

Which meant Georges could be anywhere.

The world opened up suddenly, like a gaping chasm, reminding him of its immensity. He'd felt it – lived it – during those nine months away, constantly on the move as he snapped the remaining threads of Moriarty's web, unknowingly tracing his way to Mary Morstan – Amélie Lassalle – via Sebastian Moran.

That trail had led him back here. Home.

But this wasn't Georges' home and there was no reason to assume he'd been brought here.

Because this had nothing to do with Sherlock. Not this time.

It was between the Woman and Mary.

Whatever it was didn't have to tie them to London.

The city came back into sharp focus, as if it had vanished and reappeared, leaving Sherlock all too aware of the sensations – the hum of the engine and the efficient movement of the vehicle under Bridget's expert guidance, as they slid almost effortlessly through the heavy traffic that contrasted the rows of high, white, stately London homes, the nearly inaudible sound of John's regular breathing in the back seat–

"Stop!" Sherlock snapped abruptly, aware of the disruption it caused John, the sudden tension in Bridget's muscles that she wrested under control with admirable speed – she even remembered to turn on her blinker before pulling off to the side of the street, engine still running.

"Sherlock–" John started.

"Stop!" Sherlock said again, this time to forestall any discussion, holding his hands up next to his head, the position helping block out extraneous information, letting John know to let him think.

He barely dared to breathe, stalking whatever tenuous connection his mind wanted to make cautiously, afraid if he came straight at it, it would vanish.

Every sound seemed heightened now: the rush of the traffic past his window, the low rumble of the engine, the faint chatter of pedestrians as they passed.

"What–" Bridget began.

"The Land Rover!" Sherlock said, realization hitting him like a flood.

"The Land Rover?" Bridget repeated. "I don't need an s-and-r vehicle here–"

"Not that one!" Sherlock snarled. "You can drive in London."

"Obviously," she replied, loosening her grip on the steering wheel slightly, giving him an annoyed look.

"You drive under the most extreme road and weather conditions in Wales. City streets, no matter how big the city, would hardly present a challenge."

"Did you pull us over to talk about my obvious driving skills?" she asked, raising an eyebrow, impatient.

"Even at night. Even in a larger vehicle."

"No," she sighed, gripping the wheel again. "Can we–"

"Ronald Adair was shot from a vehicle outside his home at night. The angle of the bullet's entry suggested it had to be a higher vehicle. Most likely a Land Rover. Like a soldier in Her Majesty's army might be accustomed to driving. Or a search and rescue worker in northern Wales."

There was no time for the flash of triumph that threatened when Bridget's confident expression dissolved – nor to banish all of John's confusion.

The doctor would just have to keep up.

He usually managed. Mostly.

"Back to Baker Street," Sherlock ordered. "Your contacts won't be as useful as a dead man will be right now."


	8. Chapter 8

"No." John's hand wrapped around Sherlock's wrist, holding hard, stopping the detective from unlocking their front door. "Not a chance," the doctor added, throwing a hard glare at Bridget.

He paused, eyes tracking a couple of pedestrians until they were out of earshot.

"I'm not having a self-confessed murderer in my house," he said, voice low but full of angry menace.

Behind him, Bridget raised her eyebrows and tucked her hands into the pockets of her jeans. She'd regained her confidence with admirable speed, a trait Sherlock suspected was crucial in her official line of work.

Undoubtedly in her unofficial one as well.

"Don't go in much yourself, then?" Bridget asked.

"I've never–"

"Yes you have. Unless a serial killing cabbie was shot by accident at long range through at least one set of windows."

Sherlock moved like lightning, putting himself between them, a hand resting lightly on John's chest to keep the doctor from moving.

"Inside," he snapped. "Both of you. _Now_."

He leaned past John, thankful for the difference in height, to unlock and push the door inward, propelling the doctor inside. Sherlock shut the door after Bridget, giving her a warning glare.

"You'd do well to remember the number of DIs in the Met I know," he said, then turned his attention to John, wrapping a hand around his partner's bicep and catching the flicker in John's eyes at the intimacy of the action.

"It wasn't her," he said.

"What?" John demanded. Sherlock spared Bridget a glance; she was leaning against the wall, arms folded, expression not quite shuttered enough to mask the hint of curiosity and apprehension.

"She was the driver, John, not the shooter. It would be inefficient to attempt both, particularly in central London."

John's nostrils flared as he exhaled, visibly annoyed at being wrong.

"Who was it then?" he demanded.

"Not a chance," Bridget replied, echoing his recent words. Sherlock swallowed his own irritation at the way the comment made John tense, tendons jutting out along the sides of the doctor's neck as he balled his hands into fists.

"We don't even know if Adair is connected to this," she pointed out.

"We don't know _yet_ ," Sherlock replied.

"It would be a hell of a coincidence."

"No," Sherlock murmured, feeling the tug of something at the back of his mind, annoyed at the trivial necessities that required him to keep talking. "The universe is rarely so lazy."

He refocused, ignoring his mind's protest.

"We need everything Mary has on Adair."

Bridget snorted, giving her head a sharp shake.

"That's not going to happen."

"She sent you to work with us."

"To find Alexandre Georges. Not to meddle in her business."

"Georges _is_ her business, although I'm certain he'd rather not be. Would you like to explain to her that we turned down a chance of finding him because you assumed Mary wouldn't provide us with potentially pertinent information?"

"The key word there being 'potentially'."

"She sent you to speak through you," Sherlock pointed out, arching an eyebrow. "Not to speak for her. I can concoct another code, but I doubt she'd be especially happy to see you shirking your responsibilities."

Bridget rolled her eyes, throwing her hands in the air with a quick, exasperated movement.

"All right, fine," she said. "But I do this on my own. Mary decides what you need to know, not the other way around."

"Obviously," Sherlock drawled as John opened his mouth to retort. The doctor snapped his mouth shut, shooting the detective a dark glare.

"We have our own work to do," he continued, putting a hand on John's back and steering the doctor toward the ground floor flat. "You'll know where to find us when you have what we need."

* * *

"Mycroft sent someone pick up all of Adair's files," John said. "I know this. I saw it happen."

Sherlock ignored him – no surprise there – to fold himself down onto his knees and elbows, dislodging a puff of dust when he dragged a flat box out from underneath Mrs. Hudson's old sofa.

"You saw _some_ files being returned," Sherlock agreed. "But not the important ones."

John rolled his eyes and sighed, but didn't comment – Sherlock would defend the action as prescience, even if it was really just his pack-rat tendencies and his inability to let Mycroft have the final say over a case they'd considered resolved.

"What are we looking for?" he asked, settling on the couch as Sherlock thrust a pair of files at him.

"Anything familiar," the detective replied. "Anything referring to her or anyone connected to her."

"You're connected to her," John pointed out. Sherlock's jaw tightened, his gaze becoming fixed on the stack of papers he'd spread out before him, too rigid to be only concentration.

"Yes," he said curtly.

"If your name was mentioned in here, don't you think Mycroft would have realized?"

Another hesitation, and a sharp nod.

"Yes," Sherlock repeated.

John sighed silently, flipping the first file open, unsurprised by the mess of papers within. Sherlock had probably rammed the contents of several files into one before returning the rest to his brother's aide. He might have had some kind of system for determining what to keep and what to send back, but John suspected part of it had been haphazard, born of a need to annoy Mycroft.

If Mycroft had even noticed.

The elder Holmes brother had considered the case closed – Sherlock certainly had, at least in terms of the murderer's identity.

It was annoying now to know that wasn't true.

And infuriating to know that because of it, an innocent man was missing.

"You've gone through these before," John pointed out, skimming a meaningless list of dates and associated illegible notes. "Wouldn't you have picked up on her name?"

"He recorded everything as initials," Sherlock murmured, attention mostly focused on the work now. "And I had no reason to keep looking after finding Moran's name in his notes."

John nodded vaguely, flipping over a page, aware that the motion caught Sherlock's eye.

"Stop!" his partner snapped, a hand closing around John's wrist, the sudden restriction making him tense. "Give me that."

He plucked the sheet from John's folder with his free hand, releasing the doctor and turning away abruptly. John breathed out slowly and deliberately – no matter how long he'd known Sherlock or how physical they'd been, he didn't think he'd ever get over the instinctive military reaction to being restrained so unexpectedly.

Sherlock completely failed to notice – of course – hurriedly spreading out several sheets of paper that he'd pulled from other files, seemingly at random. John leaned forward, elbows on his knees, trying to see a pattern in the handwritten columns.

"What do you notice about the ink?" Sherlock demanded.

"It's blue," John said.

"Yes! All of it!"

"So what?" John asked wearily. "Blue ink isn't exactly uncommon."

"But it's all _the same_ ink, John!" Sherlock cried, springing to his feet. "Think about it! When we found Adair, he had ink on his fingers – blue ink, from a fountain pen. A man like him wouldn't bother with cheap pens but he kept a specific pen to make these records – why?"

"Sherlock, I wasn't with you when you saw Adair," John said.

Sherlock froze in mid-step, grey-eyed gaze turning on John like a laser, but his expression was full of surprise. John raised his eyebrows pointedly, wondering how often Sherlock had inserted him into the memories of events he hadn't been present for.

"This was a man who could – and did – hire people to keep track of his correspondence and financial records for him, but information like this, he wouldn't have trusted to anyone else. Not even to a computer, where it could be copied too easily, stolen without being noticed."

"The way Alexandre's info was, from Mycroft," John said.

"Precisely!" Sherlock replied, the brief gleam in his eyes making John roll his; of course he'd see this as a murdered man somehow one-upping his brother.

"He had this same ink on his fingers when he was murdered, which means he'd been very recently updating these records."

"But you didn't find him with any of this," John hazarded.

"No, but I was by no means the first one there."

"Who found him?"

Sherlock paused, and John saw him slide away, eyelids flickering as he scanned through his memories.

"One of the household staff. Or so I was told. Mycroft was there before me, and the military police."

"So any one of those people could have taken the records from him and hidden them."

"Or destroyed them," Sherlock agreed. "Presuming he hadn't already hidden them away and simply hadn't had the time to properly wash his hands."

"Okay, but how did Mycroft end up with all of this?" John asked. "If these were secret records, why didn't Mycroft make a big deal of them when he gave them to you?"

"The best disguise is hiding in plain sight, John," Sherlock replied. "To the casual observer – or even an interested one without the right context – these aren't very informative. A list of dates and initials, some with brief notes, personally coded, but if Adair hadn't ended up a victim of Mary's assassins, something like this wouldn't have raised any flags to anyone else who happened upon it."

John sat back, thinking quickly.

"And to someone who isn't a casual observer?" he asked. Sherlock's lips twitched, the expression almost immediately quelled, but the gleam of triumph in his eyes didn't fade.

"There's a distinct pattern. Look here." John did as bidden, following Sherlock's index finger as it traced passed several entries labelled 'T.W.'. "Here's where they switch, approximately two months before his death. When he learned The Woman's name."

John started, glancing up from the first entry labelled 'I.A', shaking his head.

"It could be someone else," he protested.

"It could be," Sherlock agreed. "There are other new initials that post-date 'I.A'," he tapped on one labelled 'R.D., Sr' for emphasis, "and there are certainly others that cross this barrier consistently," here Sherlock indicated two sets of initials, 'C.B.' and 'M.P.F.', that were repeated fairly consistently, "but the frequency with which The Woman is noted increases until he makes the switch to her proper name."

"So he knew who she was," John said. "Couldn't he have been one of her clients?"

Sherlock cleared his throat quietly, the uncomfortable response sitting poorly with John.

"Possibly," the detective said. "But unlikely. He would have known her name if that were the case."

"Unless he started using her initials when he became a client. Maybe he was just in negotiations up until that point."

Sherlock pursed his lips, eyes darting away. John gave in, unwilling to pursue that line of enquiry any further.

"You don't think so," he guessed.

"No," Sherlock said, looking relieved. "John, think about it! Ronald Adair knew _everyone_. By virtue of his family, his education, his personality, and undoubtedly his concerted efforts, he had more connections than most MI5 agents can probably boast. If you wanted something – if you wanted _information_ – and you moved in the right circles, why _wouldn't_ you go to him? Especially–"

He cut himself off at the sound of a perfunctory knock and the door to the ground floor flat being pushed open. Bridget came in, phone in hand, looking mildly displeased.

"Ronald Adair was–"

"Selling information about Mary to Irene Adler. I know."

Bridget snapped her mouth shut, eyes going wide with surprise that John felt mirrored in himself.

"What? How do you know that?"

"Observation and deduction," Sherlock replied brusquely. "The question is, what information?"

"That I don't know. No, don't even start! We didn't know who he was selling it to until this mess happened. Only that he was."

"Someone found out before you," Sherlock said.

"Right, you did, congratulations," Bridget sighed. "Why have me bother with calling Mary if you already knew?"

"If I'd known this before today, I wouldn't have," Sherlock replied crisply. "I'm not talking about myself. Look."

He crouched down, jabbing one of Adair's note sheets again; John let his gaze follow the motion to the initials Sherlock had pointed to earlier: 'R.D., Sr'. With a soft sigh, Bridget crossed the room, glancing down to where the detective was indicating.

"Somebody, Senior?" she asked.

"That's American, isn't it? Most likely?" John said.

"Or it's meant to look that way," Sherlock replied. "Read another way, it's being use as 'Sir'."

"Sir?" John echoed, glancing at Bridget, who looked as befuddle as he felt, before some slow realization began to take hold. "R.D. is–" Sherlock nodded, arching an eyebrow, grey eyes serious. "Richard Douglas. Sir Richard Douglas."

"Precisely," Sherlock replied.

"But we still don't know what the information was," John protested, feeling cast adrift, scrambling to understand the connections.

"No," Sherlock agreed. "But someone does. And I suggest we start by finding out if anyone even tangentially connected to either of them hired Karam Sarraf to courier any messages."


	9. Chapter 9

"We'd already knew that though," John pointed out. "We were looking for that connection between them when they were murdered."

"Between Douglas and Sarraf, yes," Sherlock agreed, casting a brief look at Bridget, who had perched herself on the arm of a chair, arms folded, watching him expectantly. "Not between Sarraf and Adair. Adair might have been the one paying for Sarraf's services. Or one of Adair's people."

"Great," John muttered, tendons on the backs of his hands jutting out as he rubbed his palms together roughly. "That really narrows it down, doesn't it? Between Richard Douglas and Charles Adair, we might as well interview the entire planet."

"We start with their mutual acquaintances," Sherlock said. John gave him a sharp looking and a harsh sigh. The task of pinpointing a valuable common thread between Douglas and Adair was likely to be as time consuming and challenging as it would have been finding that same link between Adair and Mycroft.

"Well, we know they both knew Irene Adler," John snapped. "She's on Adair's list, and she had Douglas murdered."

"I thought Douglas helped her get access to those tunnels," Bridget said. "What?" she asked when two surprises gazes swung her way. "You know Mary reads John's blog. Why shouldn't I?"

"He got her access to the tunnels that led to his building. Where she had him murdered."

"But why?" Bridget asked.

"Because of Alexandre Georges," Sherlock replied brusquely. "The symbols on the tunnel walls are the same as those used on the cover of his latest book."

"I know that," Bridget sighed, eyes bright with exasperation. "I know she was trying to get you interested in him to figure out who he was and why his name was linked with Mary – but it's stupid to kill someone just because they got you access to some tunnels."

"It's all a game to her," John muttered.

"And that's still a stupid move," Bridget said. "He might not have even known he was working for her. Sarraf either. Why kill either of them? There was nothing else down there _except_ those symbols, not if you take away Douglas' body. Why would he care about some graffiti on a tunnel wall? It's not–"

"It's not enough," Sherlock interrupted, pushing himself to his feet, muscles tense as he held himself in still, poised, waiting for the tenuous connections skirting the edges of his mind to creep into his reach.

"But what if–" John started, momentarily silenced when Sherlock held up a hand, but refusing to back down altogether. "No, Sherlock, what if that _was_ enough? It wouldn't be the first time she'd done this kind of thing!"

"Neither of them could be mistaken for the Woman, John!" Sherlock snapped. "Quiet!"

John huffed, sitting back abruptly in his chair. Sherlock ignored him with some effort, following mental flickering pathways, getting side-tracked and turned about.

It _wasn't_ enough.

Unpleasant to have to do this out loud with someone else here, but there was nothing for it.

"Adair was selling information on Mary," he began, marshalling the events and information into some kind of order – there _was_ a logic here, even if it wasn't evident at the moment.

He would make it evident. Force it into the light and strip away all of the clutter until he got to the core of it.

"Yes," Bridget replied.

"But _you_ don't know what. Mary does – it may or may not be important."

Bridget only shrugged; Sherlock felt the heat of John's glower directed at her.

"He was selling it to the Woman, which meant it was valuable - not the information about Mary's relationship to Georges, because then Mary would have known about him. Something professional is the most likely scenario."

He paused, glancing down at John, who was watching him intently, in part, Sherlock suspected, to avoid having to look at Bridget any more than necessary.

"He was also in contact with Richard Douglas. Who was working for the Woman. That meant that Douglas knew _something_ about her. A man in his position would want to meet his employer – he _would_ know he was working for her," he added, directing the comment at Bridget, who only shrugged again.

"Adair was resourceful. So was Douglas." Sherlock stopped abruptly, turning fully to face John, hands up, fingers splayed. John gave him an expectant look, sitting forward slightly, but kept silent.

"How long had they known each other?" Sherlock asked. John's eyes widened slightly, lips parting in surprise as realization dawned.

That hadn't mattered when they'd investigated Adair's murder. It hadn't come up when they'd investigated Richard Douglas' murder, but they hadn't been looking for it. The connection might have been there, buried amongst each man's myriad contacts, a tiny and innocuous piece of information that might have tied everything together so much sooner.

"Do you think they–"

"No!" Sherlock said, pressing his fingertips to his temples. "Yes, I'm certain they did! We need to know but not right now. Stop. Let me think."

He brought his palms together, fingertips resting just below his nose, and held himself still again. The weight of expectation in the room a physical sensation as two gazes held him fast, tense and anxious.

Adair had had information on Mary, something he'd been willing to sell to the Woman. The nature of that information might matter, but it might not, and Sherlock didn't have access to it.

Yet.

He would – Bridget could be persuaded to persuade Mary, he was certain of that, but it wasn't crucial right now.

The Woman would have wanted the information for something.

It wasn't Adair's death that had put her onto Mary's trail. But perhaps the abrupt, and very final, abortion of that deal had turned her attention more closely to Mary.

And to Charles Adair's other contacts.

"That's how she found Douglas," Sherlock said, aware only then that he'd spoken the rest out loud.

"Yeah, but why kill him?" John insisted. "What did he have on her?"

Sherlock froze, feeling suspended, as if the world has slowed around him so that the seconds crawled by while the realizations slotted themselves almost effortlessly into place.

He met John's gaze, but the doctor seemed so distant, even sitting forward on the sofa, the hand on the arm rest bunched into a fist, the muscles around his jaw tight.

Bridget drew a breath; Sherlock heard it dimly, more aware of John's reaction stopping it, the way the doctor held up a hand, the movement sharp and economical. So very military. John hadn't torn his gaze away and Sherlock felt caught by it, as though the two of them might stay, ensnared, in that moment.

"What could he have on her that was worth selling?" Sherlock asked, watching as the words sunk in, the confusion making John's eyes gleam. "What is the one thing she would go to any lengths to protect?"

John's features relaxed, his tongue darting out to lick his lips quickly.

"That– that bloody phone," he said.

"Yes," Sherlock agreed.

"But– how? You kept it, didn't you?"

"Yes," Sherlock repeated. "But Mycroft knew the code. You gave Mycroft's people access to your office. And our flat."

He was aware of Bridget's gaze alternating between them, but she was mercifully silent, impatience kept in check.

"You– you think he– you didn't take it with you?"

"No," Sherlock replied, displeased by John's surprise, logical though it was. Neither of them had known, back then, what was coming. To John, both Sherlock and the Woman had been dead. To Sherlock, she'd existed merely in the background then, unimportant compared to the threat to John's life, the electronic history contained on her mobile irrelevant to dismantling Moriarty's network.

Mycroft would have known it was here, somewhere.

He'd had every opportunity to find it and remove it.

And ample opportunity to return it before Sherlock had come home.

Sherlock had checked for it shortly after returning, after John had let him move back in. It had been where he'd left it, undisturbed.

Or so it had seemed.

"But– Mycroft wouldn't sell that. Would he?"

"Hardly," Sherlock replied. "And he thought she was dead." They all had – Sherlock had seen to the perpetuation of that lie, and the flare of anger in John's eyes was enough to remind him of the damage that had done.

"But Mycroft's people aren't Mycroft," he continued. "My brother wouldn't part with information like that. Other people would."

"But why?" John demanded.

"Money," Sherlock and Bridget said in unison.

"If Mycroft thought she was dead, wouldn't his people?" John asked. "What good would selling that information do?"

"There's no reason to assume he shared her apparent death with everyone," Sherlock replied.

John stared at him a moment, hands tensing into fists.

"So, someone working for your brother thought she was alive because Mycroft didn't tell them she was dead?"

"Right for the wrong reasons," Sherlock said. "Exactly."

John sighed harshly, sitting back in his chair again, eyes flickering away briefly.

He didn't say it, not with Bridget here, but Sherlock saw the reproach etched clearly into the doctor's features.

_This is a right fucking mess you've made, isn't it?_

Sherlock swallowed his indignation, seeing the irritation tempered when John met his gaze again – _possibly_ some of this might have been averted if he'd told Mycroft about the Woman's continued existence.

But unlikely.

"Would Mary buy that kind of information?" John demanded, turning his attention to Bridget.

She shrugged, expression less disinterested than her body language might otherwise suggest.

"It's possible."

"Information _is_ power, John," Sherlock added.

"I thought it was knowledge that was power," John sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and his forefinger.

"You need information to have knowledge," Sherlock replied. "Safe to say, however, Mary might not have known she'd had it. A lot of information comes her way. No way to go through all of it, particularly if it doesn't seem relevant."

Bridget sighed, spreading her hands.

"I don't know what she sees, or doesn't see."

"If she'd seen this, we'd know," Sherlock said. "It's about the Woman, and the Woman has her brother. She may not want us to know her secrets, but she'd have no scruples about sharing the Woman's with us. Not if it helped find Georges."

He stopped speaking abruptly and turned back to John, extending a hand. The doctor look at it, befuddled, before raising his puzzled gaze to meet Sherlock's firm one.

"What?" John asked.

"Get up," Sherlock replied. "Bridget, get your car keys. We're going."

"Not to Mary we're not," Bridget replied sharply.

"No," Sherlock agreed. Mary Morstan had made him a promise, after all – he'd never see her again. "To Mycroft." He flashed Bridget a smile, brittle and cold. "I'm sure he'll be delighted to see you."

* * *

 "Get out your phone."

John pulled his phone from his pocket, suddenly aware of how automatically he'd obeyed the order, and grateful that Bridget wasn't with them in Mycroft's rather depressing office.

She'd been left to wait in the lobby under orders from the security personnel in Mycroft's building – only Sherlock and John had been granted access to the elder Holmes' office, and only under condition of an escort.

Two guards were stationed outside the closed door, which had left John wondering why they'd been given unsupervised access to Mycroft's office.

The fact that Sherlock hadn't immediately used the opportunity to start rifling through Mycroft's files was surprising; the fact that he kept himself restrained was even more so. They'd been kept waiting for ten minutes now, and John hadn't missed the growing exasperation in the detective's expression.

It annoyed John too, especially now, that Mycroft would keep them waiting when someone's life was at risk.

"Unlock it and turn the camera on," Sherlock said. John did so, giving his partner a puzzled look. Sherlock didn't bother explaining himself, but pulled a very small sealed bag from the inner pocket of his suit jacket, handing it to John.

It landed heavily in John's palm, the white powder inside the bag shifting slightly.

"Take a photo," Sherlock ordered, and John did, caught between confusion and alarm, unresisting when Sherlock plucked his phone away from him and typed a rapid message.

_Found this. We need to talk. Now._

The bag was taken from him and tossed lightly on Mycroft's desk, a tiny disruption that threatened to derail John's train of thought altogether.

"Baking powder and salt," Sherlock said. "He can use it in a cake. But it _will_ get his attention."

"Christ," John sighed, locking his phone again and shoving it into his back pocket. "You don't–"

"No, I don't have any," Sherlock snapped. "Feel free to check when this is all over."

John's hands curled into his fists of their own accord; he relaxed them deliberately, shaking his head.

"No," he replied. "I believe you."

There was something in Sherlock's expression – surprise or some hint of vulnerability – that startled John.

Sherlock hadn't expected to be believed. Not without physical proof.

John knew he had more than enough reason to demand that physical proof – he'd recognize the signs of Sherlock being high immediately, but the detective could have any number of hiding places in either flat that John would never find. He might not know until it was too late.

But John had to start somewhere, and Sherlock hadn't been high at least since he'd come back to London.

And there was a much more pressing matter right now.

He fisted his hands again, releasing them only when Sherlock's gaze flickered downward, expression displeased.

"Sit," Sherlock ordered, nodding at one of the chairs in front of Mycroft's desk. John gave him a puzzled look but did as bidden, confusion growing when his partner sat across from him, leaning forward to snag John's left wrist.

John tensed instinctively, trying to pull away, but Sherlock held firm, meeting the doctor's gaze levelly. A deep breath helped John relax, and he nodded once, curtly, giving permission for Sherlock to do whatever it was he had in mind.

Sherlock curled both of his hands under John's, thumbs pressing into John's palm, digging in slow, deep circles.

The surprise made him tense again; Sherlock arched an eyebrow pointedly and John forced himself to relax, to let his muscles release so that Sherlock was supporting the weight of his hand fully.

The muscles in his hand resisted briefly, but Sherlock knew what he was doing. The detective's knowledge of anatomy wasn't as strong as John's, but better than most people's, and Sherlock had made a very conscious study of John's body over the past several months.

John had to admit it did help, but made him ruefully aware of the aches and tension everywhere else. He was going to pay for all of this once they'd found Alexandre – and they _would_ find Alexandre.

He could wait, he decided grimly. He had no other choice.

The sound of his phone beeping in unison with Sherlock's startled him slightly, and John felt a pang of regret when the detective pulled away to answer it. John fumbled for his own mobile, looking at Sherlock for an explanation of the link, followed by the abrupt instruction:

_Go home._

"What–" he started.

"This is Bridget's number," Sherlock said, pulling John to his feet and crossing the office in one long stride to yank the door open. The security guards Mycroft had insisted upon look startled, but Sherlock brushed right past them, John in his wake, leaving them scrambling to catch up.

They met Mycroft on the stairs, the elder Holmes brother clearly displeased by their sudden appearance, reproaches and accusations lining up to be voiced, but Sherlock pushed past him, barely deigning to glance back.

"It was fake!" he shouted back, leaving John to give Mycroft a somewhat apologetic shrug in lieu of explanation, clattering down the stairs so close behind Sherlock he had to take care not to trip his partner.

Sherlock stopped in the middle of the lobby, so abruptly that John had to rein himself in hard to keep from colliding with the detective, ignoring the near impact to scour the area the way Sherlock was doing, searching for and failing to find a familiar face. Those coming or going from the building gave them odd looks, a few startled glances darting their way when Sherlock snarled, a dangerous sound. John put a hand on Sherlock's arm instinctively, the same tension of denial tightening his own muscles.

She'd been their only link to Mary.

The only way to access the information they desperately needed.

"She said she had to go," a voice said from behind them, and John turned as Sherlock did, the security guard taking a startled step back at the sudden animosity directed his way. The guard held up his hands, as if that might ward them off, giving his head a quick shake. "But she said the text would explain it."

"Explain what?" Sherlock demanded, taking a step forward, forcing the guard backwards.

"She didn't say! Just that it would!"

"Sherlock!" Mycroft's voice echoed, augmented by the marble flooring, as he strode toward them. Sherlock snarled again; John ignored them both, clicking on the link on his phone, eyes widening when the YouTube video began to play.

He locked his phone; he certainly didn't need to watch the whole length of it, not here.

"Come on," he said, dropping his hand to snag Sherlock's wrist. "We're going home."

He expected an argument, but grey eyes raked quickly over his features and Sherlock nodded once, a hard, sure motion.

"Sherlock!" his brother called again, exasperation coarsening the edges of his polished accent.

"No time, Mycroft!" Sherlock called back, catching John's hand, pulling them both toward the door. Sherlock's name sounded behind them again; it was easily ignored as they pushed out of the building, John squinting slightly in the sudden sunlight, shading his eyes to clatter down the steps towards the street, where Sherlock dislodged some hapless stranger from the cab he'd just hailed, a curt tone and a twenty pound note suppressing any protest from the driver.

"Baker Street," Sherlock ordered, each word dropped like a ton of bricks, leaving no room for argument. " _Now_."


	10. Chapter 10

Watching the video at home was only marginally better than watching it somewhere public – and only because there was no one else gawking or being silently mortified.

Sherlock had at least turned the sound off, which was a small mercy considering he'd played it on his laptop, making it harder for some of the detail to be lost to imagination. It certainly wasn't the most graphic thing John had ever seen – he _had_ been in the army after all – but being able identify some of the participants made it seem so much worse.

It wasn't just Adler John recognized.

He wondered how much of it Sherlock had already seen – had the detective actually looked through her phone? Even that idea had set John on edge; he curled his hands into fists and reminded himself that Sherlock had shown little inclination for anything like this in the past, and that he'd _never_ shown an interest in anything this hard core, even since they'd become a couple.

Most of it wasn't actual video footage, thankfully, but even in the still images or the shots where John couldn't quite make out a face, the names of the clients were splashed across the bottom of the screen.

Sherlock was silent, writing each name down, the look of concentration on his face betraying nothing else – for a moment, John could almost believe this was just another client, just more information to be gleaned and used.

He wondered if the note-taking was a distraction or if it meant Sherlock had, in fact, never seen this before.

Unless it had been added by whoever had uploaded the video.

When the video had run its course, Sherlock closed the browser and clicked the laptop shut definitively.

"That–" John started, his voice catching before he cleared his throat. "That says it was posted at the end of last year. Right–"

"Right around the time I came back," Sherlock agreed.

"It's been up there this whole time," John said.

"Yes."

"So why _now_ , Sherlock? How could she not have known it was there before?"

"There are no search terms," Sherlock replied.

"What?"

"It's a public video, John, but there are no search terms linked to it. No way to find it unless you have the link, because it won't turn up in any search engines and won't be suggested with similar videos. Hiding in plain sight."

"You're saying no one could have found it," John asked, half a question, half a disbelieving statement.

"Not unless they'd known where to look," Sherlock confirmed. "Ingenious, really. Freely available but utterly inaccessible."

"Jesus," John muttered, passing a hand over his eyes. "And Richard Douglas sold this to Mary?"

"To one of Mary's people, most likely."

"So, what– she has no idea she has it?"

"I suspect she does now," Sherlock said. "But not before today, no."

"Well that's just bloody brilliant, isn't it? She has Adler's– information, Adler has her brother, they've both managed to have the people linking this all together killed! It's– it's–"

"Messy," Sherlock supplied.

"Sherlock, it's a fucking disaster! This– this is worse than Moriarty!"

John knew immediately that it was the wrong thing to say, the meaning of his words catching up with his outrage and making his blood run cold, but Sherlock was calm when he put his notepad down, meeting John's gaze levelly.

"No, John, it isn't," he said, and there was no banked anger in his voice, no hint of a storm beneath. Just a statement of fact. "And under any other circumstances I'd suggest we step back immediately, but a man's life is at stake and the only people involved for whom this isn't personal is us."

"Isn't personal?" John snapped, mind reeling at the absurdity of the statement. "Sherlock, she– _both_ of them–"

"This," Sherlock said, tapping his laptop, "is personal to the Woman, John. It's her insurance policy. Her _life._ And Georges is personal to Mary, even if he wasn't last week. He's _family_. Neither of those things are true for us."

"That's not personal to you?" John snapped, nodding at the laptop.

Sherlock was still and silent for a moment, and John thought he'd miscalculated again, but the detective shook his head.

"No," he said.

John deflated somewhat, tension ebbing out of his muscles – but not nearly enough. He took a deep breath, held it, and released it slowly, repeating the action, catching Sherlock's watchful glare, and the cautious approval.

"What do we do now?" he demanded. "We've come home, but only because Bridget told us to – and she's buggered off, so what good is that?"

"I don't think that was intentional," Sherlock replied.

"What? Sherlock, she _left_!"

"And you heard what Mary told us. She'll protect her people first. Bridget didn't leave, she was recalled. And I doubt she was asked to pass on this particular piece of information first."

"So what, Mary just gave it to her and expected she'd keep quiet about it?"

"As far as we know, Mary has no reason to suspect Bridget won't keep her confidence. But you're assuming Mary knew about this before Bridget did."

John stared at Sherlock for a moment, cajoling his brain into catching up.

"You think Bridget found this? How?"

"I don't know," Sherlock sighed. "And it doesn't matter. What does matter is that _we_ have the information."

"What good does it do us, Sherlock? You've had access to this for ages!"

"Not to the knowledge that Mary owned the information – even if she did so unknowingly."

"So what?" John snapped. "So we know what she has on Alder – why does that matter? How does it get us any closer to finding Alexandre? Is he in one of those places?" He waved a hand vaguely at the laptop, wondering if would even be possible to pin down where most of those had been recorded. Surely most of the people on that list wouldn't have had Alder come into their homes.

Sherlock stood, gaze flickering over John before moving away toward a distance that John couldn't see.

John let himself collapse into his chair, partly to get out of the detective's way as he paced silently, eyes narrowed in concentration, hands pressed together just under his nose. John drummed his fingers quietly on the arm of his chair, half wondering if the noise would distract Sherlock, but it didn't.

Sherlock stopped abruptly; John waited for some dramatic revelation, tension creeping back into his muscles when it didn't come.

"She sent us home," Sherlock murmured, stock still, eyes still focused on something John couldn't see. "Why?"

"To watch the video," John replied shortly.

"Yes," Sherlock said, swinging his gaze to John. "And no. It wasn't about anyone's sensibilities. We could have watched the video anywhere, but she wanted us to see it, no one else."

"So there you go," John sighed. "Where does that get us?"

"The instruction doesn't make sense, John! 'Go home.'"

"What doesn't make sense about it?" John asked, keeping his patience in check as best he could. "We did it, didn't we?"

"Yes, but the logical instruction would be 'watch this on your own' or similar. Not 'go home'. She wanted us here."

"To do what?" John snapped, but Sherlock ignored him, turning slowly in place, eyes flickering over the flat as if seeing it for the first time.

"He's not _here_ ," John said. "We'd know."

"Yes," Sherlock murmured again. John pressed a fist against his mouth, drumming the fingers of his other hand against the chair again.

"Nor his flat in Paris," John said. "We'd know that, too."

Sherlock didn't answer, expression distant again, but more briefly this time; he rounded on John so suddenly the doctor started, trying but failing to contain the reaction.

"I'm having tea at an old friend's."

"What?" John asked, befuddled, scrambling to understand.

"Mary said that to me, the last time I spoke to her when she was still calling herself Mary. 'I'm having tea at an old friend's.' When she was downstairs, in Mrs. Hudson's old flat."

"So?" John demanded.

"The clue is in the _wording_ , John. It's not _our_ home Bridget meant."

"Then whose?"

Sherlock didn't bother to answer, pulling out his phone and dialling a number.

"Sherlock–" Mycroft's voice came through on speaker, exasperated and impatient.

"Have you checked the house in Belgravia Square?"

"Sherlock–"

"Mycroft, have you checked the house in Belgravia Square!"

"Yes, of course we have, Sherlock. Give us some credit, please. It's currently occupied, and _not_ by anyone connected to Adler."

"Check it again," Sherlock insisted.

"I've had it under constant surveillance since this began," Mycroft sighed.

"Then check Mary Morstan's old flat."

"We've done that too. It's also under surveillance. We've cleared all the private places associated with either of them."

"Only the ones that you know about," Sherlock snapped.

"Obviously only the ones we know about, Sherlock," Mycroft sighed, and Sherlock rolled his eyes. "We could scarcely investigate the ones we aren't aware of. What have you got?"

"I don't know yet. I'll call you," Sherlock replied, ringing off abruptly before Mycroft could get another word in, and tossing his phone on the chair, ignoring it when it buzzed almost immediately.

"Sherlock–" John began, no more successfully than Mycroft; Sherlock held up a hand, silencing him. John bit his lower lip against the flare of annoyance, watching impatiently as Sherlock stood still, the flickering of his eyelashes the only indication that he wasn't simply staring off into space.

"All of the _private_ places associated with either of them!" Sherlock said suddenly, turning back to crouch in front of John, hands on the arms of John's chair effectively pinning the doctor in. "What if it's not somewhere private?"

"The middle of Trafalgar Square would be a bit obvious, wouldn't it?"

"Not a public space either, John. Somewhere in between. Private property but not precisely private space, not yet."

"Sherlock–" John tried again.

"Sherlock doesn't follow me everywhere."

John started, the words repeating himself in his mind, but in his own voice this time.

"Battersea? But it's–"

"Being turned into flats, yes. Not a public space, but not precisely a private space, not yet."

"But surely someone would have noticed!"

"Maybe," Sherlock said, pushing himself to his feet and flipping his laptop open again. "But money can buy a great deal of silence or perhaps even… construction delays due to technical issues with the permitting."

He spun the laptop towards John, revealing a short article concerning a temporary stoppage of work while a small legal issue was addressed. Dated from two weeks ago.

"I'll call Greg," John said, pushing himself to his feet.

"Wait," Sherlock replied, fingers flying over the keys again. John did as instructed, trying to see what his partner was looking for, impatience growing as Sherlock kept working. He could hear the clock ticking on the mantle, slowing than the clicking of the keys under Sherlock's fingertips, but each second was slicing away more of Alexandre's time, decreasing their odds of finding him alive.

"Sherlock–"

"Go home," Sherlock said, echoing Bridget's instruction again. "It _is_ a fitting instruction John. Two penthouses, one of them purchased outright by a Kuwaiti family who seem to have no connection to any of this, the other through a legal corporation on behalf of someone who doesn't appear to exist at all, although if I had the time, I could run it down to the person behind it. The woman behind it."

"You think–"

"Either one of them, I'm not sure which. Some bizarre sentimentality on the Woman's part? Coincidence on Mary's part?"

"But if Mary bought it, it wouldn't be coincidence for Alder to take Alexandre there," John said.

"Precisely. Get your gun."

"I'll call Greg," John repeated, moving to unlock his phone. Sherlock snagged his wrist, stopping the motion short.

"When we arrive," Sherlock said. "We have a much better chance of getting in unnoticed without all of the sirens."

"Sherlock, we can't just leave the police out of this!"

"I'm not suggesting we do," Sherlock replied. "Just delay it a bit, John. For Alexandre's sake."

"What, you don't think that's the worst thing we could do for him?"

"If I were anyone else, yes," Sherlock said. John rolled his eyes, thumb hovering over the unlock symbol on his phone. "John. Trust me."

"This is a man's _life_ , Sherlock!"

"And I made a promise to save it. Two people can get in where twenty cannot. Especially the two of us. Especially here."

John warred with himself for a long moment before relenting, relaxing his grip enough that Sherlock released him, letting him put his phone away.

"The _minute_ we get there, Sherlock," he said, leaving no room for argument. "And if anyone starts shooting, I'll bloody well sit on you if I have to to keep you out of it. Understood?"

Sherlock nodded, lips twitching, but there wasn't so much as a flicker of amusement in his expression.

"Understood."


	11. Chapter 11

_Jesus_ , John thought, eyes skimming the outline of the old power station in the fading daylight. Silhouettes of cranes towered above the construction site, illuminated only by warning lights to alert airplanes, but the sprawling building itself was dark.

It seemed larger than he remembered it – some of that was the scaffolding but it was mostly the stark reality that this time, he wasn't being led somewhere specific. He'd had a guide of sorts last time.

And Adler had _wanted_ to be found.

Now they were going in blind, just the two of them. Armed, yes, but without knowing what they would find.

His memory wavered for a moment, threatening to send him back to Wales and to Afghanistan at the same time; John set his jaw, drawing his gun and following Sherlock's careful path through the construction site toward the building.

Wales didn't matter here, but Afghanistan did. A hand on Sherlock's arm stopped the detective, and John took the lead, slipping so easily back into thinking and moving like a soldier that it almost surprised him. He shelved that, keeping his focus on what he'd been trained to do so long ago.

Sherlock fell in behind him without question or protest, letting John take charge; the doctor gave himself a brief moment to be grateful for that without becoming distracted by it.

Every sense stayed tuned to his immediate environment, scanning the shadows for places where there might be movement or too much depth, listening for anything outside of the distant sounds of London or the shifting of the evening breeze across tarps.

They could be in the wrong place.

It could be a trap.

It could be both of those things at the same time.

The silence didn't feel false, but John didn't trust it all the same.

If Alexandre _was_ in there, they owed it to him to find out – and John was acutely aware that they might not have another chance if they passed this one up.

The police were on their way, he reminded himself.

And Sherlock had been right. They were more likely to get in unnoticed just the two of them than an entire armed force would be.

John set his jaw again, hoping like hell they'd been unnoticed. The security cameras surrounding the site had been on, but Sherlock had navigated through their blind spots as much as possible.

John saw no indication of cameras inside, but that didn't mean they weren't there.

He _felt_ like he was being watched, even through the apparently sincere silence. Someone could have been watching from a distance.

This was a game to her, after all. One in which they weren't the goal – John held no illusions that he was anything more than a pawn for Adler, but he wondered darkly where Sherlock fit into her plans. He doubted the detective was as disposable as he himself was, and it wouldn't have surprised him if Sherlock was being strung along.

For fun, or for some ulterior motive.

John smothered the flash of fury, checking his breath to keep it calm.

Whatever her plans for Sherlock might be, they hardly mattered.

It was his own plans for Sherlock that were important. And he planned on both of them being back at Baker Street before the sun came back up, with Alexandre safely on his way back to France.

He fixed that image in his mind, a stubborn frame of reference, and motioned to Sherlock to crouch down. The detective did so without hesitation, but John could feel the questions and concern directed his way; he ignored them, taking shelter behind a low stack of bricks.

He scanned the entrance – it was their best choice, closest and most accessible, which made it the most obvious as well. Anyone waiting for them would set up on the other side, an easy position to ambush from

Still, he doubted Adler would leave any entrance uncovered if she wanted to catch them immediately. Best to take the most obvious entrance. It was clear enough on this side for him to feel confident that no one was waiting to catch them up before they got inside.

That was something at least.

He gestured to Sherlock, keeping low as they crept toward the building, each of them moving to stand on either side of the open entrance, backs against the wall, guns ready. There was no door, just an empty frame covered by a sheet of plastic. It took undisturbed, the plastic fixed firmly to the plywood walls, and the staples holding it in place didn't look fresh.

He nodded at Sherlock, who drew a pen knife deftly from a pocket and sliced a neat line through the plastic next to the door frame. Sherlock twitched the now-loose plastic aside with one foot; John positioned himself quickly to fire if needed.

The breeze played at the free edge of the plastic, but beyond that, nothing stirred. John shifted his stance slightly, giving Sherlock another curt nod. He wasn't happy about it, but the detective was closer to the makeshift entrance and John was already in a position to cover him as much as possible.

Sherlock met his gaze squarely, the look in his grey eyes speaking volumes. John swallowed hard, adjusting his grip on his gun.

The moment it took for Sherlock to duck under the plastic was less than the space of a breath, but John felt suspended in it, chest and shoulders tight, senses on alert. The quick activity was followed by a taut silence, before Sherlock whispered John's name as an all-clear.

John steeled himself and slipped inside, plunged immediately into darkness that was illuminated by the bright beam of Sherlock's flashlight. Instinctively he pulled out his own, positioning it under his weapon with practiced habit.

He swung the light around him, tracing upward along a vaulting space, distracted when Sherlock nudged his foot, directing his gaze downward. The detective's flashlight skittered over relatively fresh footprints impressed faintly into the dust and dirt on the building's floor.

Whoever it was hadn't come in the same way they had, but had gone past here.

John met Sherlock's gaze and nodded again, gesturing quickly in the direction the scuff marks had most likely gone. The trail was fairly indistinct, and any shoe size or type was masked by scuffing, but his own good sense of direction was backed up by Sherlock, who gave him a quick nod in return.

The absence of anything else, it was a better path to follow than nothing.

John was about to move when a sound cut through the silence, distant but distinct, an abrupt rattling that sent an adrenaline spike through his veins. He moved with Sherlock, flashlights swinging toward the sound, racing up along the beams and supports that braced the walls, landing on a terrified face staring back at them.

"Shit," John whispered, feeling Sherlock freeze beside him.

It was a woman, three stories up and tied precariously to the edge of an unstable-looking scaffolding platform, her face largely obscured by the gag covering her mouth. Despite that, and the distance that separated them, John could see her features well enough to recognize her.

"Go," Sherlock whispered from beside him. John tore his gaze from Bridget to meet Sherlock's, shaking his head vehemently.

"Not a chance–"

"We don't have time, John!" Sherlock hissed. "And she saved our lives. Go!"

John hesitated, eyes flickering back up to Bridget, who was watching with barely restrained terror, obviously trying to keep herself as still as possible. He met Sherlock's gaze again, swallowing hard, forcing himself to nod.

"I'll catch up," he said, voice low. The corners of Sherlock's lips twitched into something that was almost a smile.

"Yes," Sherlock said. "I know."

* * *

There was no time for the instincts that screamed that Bridget was a trap – of course it was a trap. Meant to separate him and John. To isolate him.

But this time, Sherlock _knew_.

He knew where he was, he knew why, and he _knew_ John would find him again.

Soon.

He moved slowly, one cautious step after another, placing each foot soundlessly, deliberately. There was an instinct to rush as well – adrenaline, an ancient defensive reaction, and not one he could heed right now.

Behind him, the sounds of John trying to rescue someone – of John being John – faded away. Sherlock kept his breathing steady, ignoring the part of him that screamed about the separation.

The Woman wouldn't kill him.

Not unless she really had to.

But Georges… Sherlock understood far too well that Georges would be readily expendable.

He'd made a promise. To Juliette Arnaud.

And to John.

He intended to keep them both.

The trail led him toward the heart of the old station, up flights of temporary stairs that existed only for the construction crews. The internal structure he'd navigated the last time had almost vanished – some of its layout remained, but it had been largely stripped away, leaving the shell of the old station and replacing the interior with something that would, someday, be sleek and modern.

Right now, wood and concrete dust hung in the air, particles dancing in the beam of his flashlight, giving the air a musty, almost woodsy smell. Sherlock inhaled deeply, teasing apart the scents, scouring it for hints of anything else.

She'd left a trail of perfume for him once before, at Baker Street.

But she was clever.

She was leaving him with nothing but the faint and fading path of footprints.

He kept moving, refusing to give into doubt that he was on the wrong track. She'd set this trap. She would be waiting. He was in the right place. His observational skills were as honed and accurate as ever. He was going the right way.

But arrogance was dangerous here; speed and assumptions could kill. Maybe not him, but Georges.

Maybe him.

Maybe John.

Sherlock kept his pace slow, deliberate, taking the time to scout his path before following it, to examine each empty room he came to without the weight of any expectation. Knowing what he was looking for might mask what was there. He needed to observe, not just to see. Assumptions could be blinding.

The prickling of hairs on the back of his neck reminded him he wasn't alone. Someone _was_ watching – doubtless there were internal cameras he wasn't aware of, that he couldn't see. How much they could record in the darkness hardly mattered. The light from one flashlight was telling enough. Even if John had been with him, it would have been too dangerous for one of them to move without a light.

Periodically but sporadically, Sherlock turned, scrutinizing the path behind him, watching and waiting for any sign of being followed.

The Woman wanted him to come, and it appeared she wanted him to come alone.

It was hardly surprising that the trail led up towards the penthouse that either she or Mary owned – more surprising that it stopped several floors below that. Light spilled out from an empty doorway in the near distance; Sherlock shut off his flashlight, squinting as he approached slowly, letting his vision adjust.

She had a natural advantage. No need to give her more.

He was silent, nothing more than a shadow, back to the nearest wall without touching it, without so much as the brush of fabric against a surface. The pulse in his ears made it more difficult to hear; Sherlock focussed on his breathing, slow and deep, forcing his heart rate to drop and match it.

He took the time to pocket his flashlight, freeing up his hands entirely to grip the gun, using the long moment to gather as much data as he could. It was a single light, not affixed to the ceiling, hung in a corner. It would leave shadows along the edges of the room, blind spots that were already blind spots because he couldn't see them. She might be in one of those, hidden and waiting.

But she knew he was coming.

And he could see her now.

She'd put herself on display the first time, too – all of herself, using her body as a weapon to throw him off.

There was none of that here; her appearance was all business, the white dress and heels impractical for a construction site but ideal for suggesting authority, hair swept up, posture poised and confident.

He took a deep breath held it, took another. The rage, bright and shocking, made his hands tremble. Sherlock steeled himself again, forcing calmness to smother the sharp, manic desire to act, to extract revenge for Wales. For John.

She would expect that. That weakness.

John _was_ his weakness. His pressure point.

One of many.

But knowing that was half the battle.

And he knew he was one of hers.

"Where is he?" Sherlock demanded, still swathed in the shadows. The flash of triumph at her surprise was overshadowed by his own.

She hadn't been sure he was coming. Not entirely.

"No, stay where you are," he said when she took one step toward the door. "I am armed and you do know I will fire."

"You saved my life once," she answered, voice smoother than he remembered, more luscious.

"I did," Sherlock agreed. "I never make the same mistake twice."

The Woman smiled, a bright sudden grin that caught him off guard – there was no sensuousness there, no cunning or guile. Only genuine amusement.

"Where is he?" Sherlock pressed, refusing to be distracted. He kept himself in check, ignoring the clamour from his muscles to tighten his finger on the trigger.

For Wales. For John.

 _No_ , he thought.

"Mister Holmes. If I'd known you were coming, I would have ordered dinner."

"Where is he?" Sherlock repeated, dropping his voice an octave, letting it resonate.

"John?" she enquired innocently; Sherlock set his jaw hard, holding himself steady. "I imagine playing the hero – he so enjoys that."

"Alexandre Georges. Where is he?"

"Aren't you going to tell me that if I let him go, I may make it out of here alive?"

"No," Sherlock replied.

He'd made promises.

That wasn't one of them.

"You won't shoot me," the Woman continued. "Oh, don't look like that," she continued, taking another slow, casual step toward the door before stopping. She couldn't see him, he knew, but he felt the flash of alarm and irritation all the same. "It's not just sentiment, you know. I haven't come completely unprepared."

She flashed another smile, this one far more calculating.

"I am on a schedule," she said. "There are… certain people waiting for me to make contact. If I don't…" A slight shrug, feigned unconcern for the result. "Perhaps I should say it would be very difficult then for _you_ to make it out of here alive."

"Tell me where he is," Sherlock said, ignoring the taunts, focussing instead on her expression, her posture.

It was easier, now, to read beneath what she wanted him to see. The rage helped, the memory of scouring an empty darkness, each passing moment without John becoming more and more suffocating.

"He has nothing to do with this."

The Woman laughed, almost as if she meant it.

"Nothing to do with _you_ , Mister Holmes. But then, nothing about this does, not really. I was hoping you would see that. I'd hate it to spoil anything between us."

He refused to take the bait, swallowing a retort.

"This is between you and Mary. Leave it at that."

"Interesting," she said, cocking her head. "Why call her that? You know it's not her name."

"It does the job," Sherlock replied.

"And here you are, doing yours. Like a good little soldier. Your brother would be so proud."

"Perhaps we should leave brothers out of this altogether," Sherlock suggested.

She laughed again, looking delighted.

"If only it were that easy," she replied. "And please, don't be tedious and tell me it could be. It's a pity it turned out this way, Mister Holmes, but you really should know your place. You could have avoided all of this by going to France when I first asked you to. All I needed from you was the information. The rest…" she shrugged again, unconcerned. "It doesn't involve you at all."

Sherlock _felt_ the movement behind him almost before he heard it, warning instincts setting off alarm bells in the split second before he felt something connect like a sledgehammer with the back of his head, blinding white light exploding across his vision, dragging searing pain with it that screamed along his nerves, paralyzing everything, seizing control of his body from him.

"Sorry about this, Mister Holmes," another familiar voice said next to his ear as the sound of his gun clattering, uselessly, to the concrete floor reached him from across a great distance, as his knees gave way, his body folding in on itself, "but I did promise you that you wouldn't ever see me again."


	12. Chapter 12

The soldier in John helped him wrestled the panic under control, ignoring the sound of Sherlock's retreating footsteps in favour of the task in front of him.

Bridget had obviously been left as a trap; it frustrated John how well Adler knew how each of them would react. John couldn't leave someone to fall to her death, not when there was something he could do to help (and certainly not after Sherlock's faked suicidal leap), and Sherlock couldn't leave a client in danger for this kind of distraction.

It was offensive how easily Adler could manipulate them. Sherlock, at least, shouldn't be so easily led – but maybe he always had been, when he was on a case.

Adler had strung him along before, after all.

_Get a grip, Watson,_ he chided himself, swinging the beam of his flashlight over the old power station's temporary inner structure, trying to find the best route.

It was going to be hard going, without any light but his flashlight, and without any way to affix that to himself and climb.

And it was going to take time, which he wasn't sure he had.

John kept a tight lid on the urgency, focusing only on the immediate task at hand. He didn't call up to Bridget – she could clearly see the beam from his flashlight headed in her direction, and he'd rather keep his presence unannounced for as long as he could.

Adler probably knew they were in the building, but on the off-chance that she didn't, John didn't want to give her any extra advantage.

It took longer than he thought, breaking the hazardous journey into manageable chunks he could navigate in the dark. The construction crews hadn't just abandoned the site haphazardly, but their tidying up hadn't taken into account clearing a pathway for a doctor trying to rescue a kidnapping victim. There were materials and equipment left out – convenient for the workers when they returned, but much less so for him.

Briefly, John wondered how Adler had managed to nab Bridget – had whatever message she'd received while they'd been waiting on Mycroft been faked?

Was Adler so sure of herself that she'd risk Mary's wrath?

Mary, he supposed, was likely to dish that out anyway. Adler _had_ taken her brother, after all.

But John suspected Mary would take this much more personally. She didn't know Alexandre, but Bridget was one of hers.

He set his jaw against the useless train of thought – it didn't involve him, and it really didn't matter who Bridget worked for. Mary or not, he didn't want Bridget's death on his hands.

He strained his hearing as he made his slow way up the scaffolding, trying to listen past the pulse hammering in his ears. Sherlock's footsteps had long since receded into nothing, and occasionally, John thought he could hear the loose plastic from their entrance shifting in the light wind, but he was probably imagining it. The breeze that had stirred through the site outside was blocked from getting in here.

More often, he could hear Bridget herself shifting minutely, maybe trying to secure her position. He wanted to call up to her not to move, but restrained himself. She was a trained search and rescue worker – if she was moving, it wasn't without forethought and necessity.

He swung the beam up to her again, hitting her chest rather than her face so as not to blind her, giving her an idea of where he was. The quick reassurance helped him, too, letting him see that she was still relatively secure and not in immediate danger of falling.

Still, John hurried as much as he was able, aware of each second sliding by that pulled Sherlock further from him and brought the detective that much closer to Adler.

He pulled himself up on the scaffolding behind Bridget, setting the flashlight on the floor and aiming it at the ropes that were securing her to the framing.

"You'll be fine," John said as he took a moment to gauge her position and how best to free her without having her pitch over the side.

Bridget nodded, not daring to look round, and John didn't need the flashlight to pick up on the tension coming off of her.

"I'm going to put my arm around you," John said, kneeling carefully behind her, wishing like hell that he had more than his flashlight, or a headlamp that would let him see what he was doing while keeping his hands free. "I can work the knot free with my other hand – it won't be comfortable, but it will keep you from falling. Okay?"

She nodded again, mutely; John considered removing the gag, but of all the bindings, that was the least inconvenient.

He braced her against his right arm, getting her to lean back as much as she was able, which wasn't much given the post against her back to which she'd been secured. That was going to make it tricky to pull her back from the edge, but John set his jaw, refusing to think about it.

One step at a time.

The knot wasn't as tight as he'd anticipated – although that wasn't particularly a relief, because it meant any real struggle on her part might have loosened it enough for her to fall free.

He eased the rope away, tightening his grip around her waist to keep her on the tiny bit of platform on which she was perched. Bridget shuddered but kept still, breathing hard.

"Now," John said, wrapping his other arm around her waist. "We're going to do this really quickly. I'm going to crouch on your left and let go with my right arm. When I say when, I want you to lean your weight left and back, right into me, as much as you can. There's a wall right behind me, so I'm safe if I fall. I'm going to pull when you lean in, and get you away from the post and onto the platform. All right?"

Bridget nodded again, hurriedly, flinching as John adjusted himself very carefully. Her hands were bound, which would make the operation more difficult, but he ignored that insight. Like the gag, it would be a waste of time to undo her hands before she was safe.

He made sure he was properly braced, keeping his breathing in check, aware that Bridget was holding herself back – desperately – from panic.

"Ready?" he asked. "On three. One– two– _three!_ "

She leaned toward him as best she could and John pulled hard, grabbing her with his right arm as well as soon as he could, hauling them back onto the platform.

They landed in a heap, both of them gasping, Bridget struggling to sit up with bound hands.

"Here," John said, easing her up. "Let me–"

He stopped abruptly when the beam from the flashlight illuminated her face enough for him to make out her features – even with the gag obscuring half of her face, he could see the differences in the outline of her cheeks and temples, the shape of her eyebrows.

"Shit," John said, realization hitting him like a freight train.

Adler had done it before.

At least twice.

And there was no reason she'd be limited only to swapping in a double of herself.

The distance between John and Sherlock seemed suddenly like a gaping vacuum, expanding irrevocably, leaving the detective abruptly and completely at Adler's mercy.

_No_ , John thought.

Not again.

His muscles caught up before his brain did, aware that the woman – not Bridget – in front of him was moving to take advantage of his shock.

He punched her as politely as he could, wincing internally as he caught her on the side of her head.

Not enough to knock her out, but enough to stun her, making her go momentarily limp.

"Sorry," John said, swallowing the wave of guilt at hitting a woman, and grabbed the rope, tying her quickly back to the post. She struggled, protesting through the gag and trying to kick him, but John steeled himself and pinned her legs long enough to let him finish.

She'd be able to work herself free from this too, but without the danger of falling this time.

He had no desire to abandon her up here – there was no guarantee that Adler would bother sending anyone to rescue her – but he needed enough time to get to Sherlock.

He snagged the flashlight and pushed himself away from her legs, chastising himself for the moment's hesitation.

"Sorry," John said again, resenting the flare of regret, and turned away, retracing his steps back to the ground floor – to Sherlock – as fast as he could without breaking his neck.

* * *

There was a sliver of light, a white triangle sliced into the darkness, fading into nothing. Too bright to illuminate anything. It hurt to look at it, so he didn't, turning away – only to be swallowed by more light.

Pain danced along his nerves; he tried to move away but couldn't. Limbs were sluggish, unresponsive, protesting every small shift with more pain.

He tried to pull away from that too, euphoric with relief as he sank away, separating himself from the pain. It hovered above him; he tried to cut it off, a small groan escaping, unnoticed from his lips.

Other things were clamouring for his attention. Cold. Roughness against his fingertips.

The smell of concrete. Wood.

More light.

He closed his eyes. How could darkness be so bright?

He was wrong, maybe. It wasn't dark.

He was never wrong.

He _was_ , he _was_ sometimes, the thought hammered at him, giving the pain a path back in; he groaned again, pushing it back, whimpering almost silently when it refused to give.

He stopped fighting, and just sank.

Much easier.

The deeper he went, the less it followed, and there was no bottom here, just depth all the way down and he could sink right out of sight of it, away from the pain and all of the other information – the cold, the smells, the light, the–

Voices.

They yanked him back to the surface, slamming him back into the body he didn't want, with no regard for anything but themselves. Cut through the haze like a burning knife, refusing to stop. Circling his mind on a loop.

Circling one another.

Like a dance, and he could almost see it, but nothing was moving, two stark figures in opposition. One white and one dark. Too far to be partnered. Too close to be benign.

He would close his eyes, he decided. Go away again. Leave them to dance – or not to dance, it didn't matter, wasn't important, it had–

"Nothing to do with _you_ , Mister Holmes."

A gasp tore from his lungs, burning his lips, as he wrenched his eyes open again. There was a moment of clarity, like sun streaming through a break in the clouds, and he could see them perfectly, his mind affixing labels to them, giving them identities they desperately needed and he already knew.

Mary Morstan. The Woman.

Who had Alexandre Georges.

"… that isn't important," Mary said.

"No," Sherlock managed. "Stop. She'll have him killed."

The clouds rushed back in, pulled into a vacuum, scattering the clarity. Pain came roaring with it; Sherlock moaned, trying to push away, cold concrete against his forehead, but the pain obscured everything, cutting him away now that he didn't want to– _couldn't_ go.

"Tell me where he is."

She didn't know– Mary didn't know, no one knew, but _someone_ must, someone _must_ , and he'd made a promise to– someone else, it didn't matter, it _did_ matter, but it _wouldn't_ matter to the Woman– not the promise, no, but Georges' whereabouts would, but she knew _,_ she _knew_ , she had to know, and she had brought them here, dragged them across London to–

"The–" His tongue was thick, catching on the words, not listening to his mind. Sherlock forced the words out through uncooperative lips. "The penthouse, Mary, he's in the penthouse."

Mary ignored him, waiting– why hadn't she listened, why _wouldn't_ she listen, she'd left him a space to answer and he had, he knew, and Georges was so close, just up the stairs, and Sherlock lifted his head, or tried to, to look at the ceiling, baffled by the stars that spun across the darkness, that hadn't been there before he'd moved.

Mary spoke again, voice like the tide, coming and going, but without any definition. Another voice answered – female, cooler, more assured– he knew that voice, saw it in his own bed, in his own flat, where another voice– another body nudged it away, taking its place, superimposing memories over one another so they merged and tangled, couldn't be pulled apart.

"This is just a game," John said, thumb brushing up along the inside of Sherlock's wrist. The touch burned his nerves, amplifying the hammering in his skull. The Woman was still talking, no– back and forth now. Like a game. "And this is just winning."

_She doesn't play games._ She'd said that to him, or close to, and he'd said it to someone else once, more than once, to John and to Lestrade, but not to the Woman, who wouldn't _know_ –

"No, don't," Sherlock said and they didn't listen, _why_ didn't they _listen_ , "She doesn't–"

Fireworks went off in his skull, the shot cutting through the voices and smothering them, leaving room for nothing but the roar of the explosion, the pounding ringing that crushed his eardrums, pinning him to the floor, leaving him screaming soundlessly and inhaling concrete dust. He scrabbled to hang on, fingertips clutching uselessly at the floor, but the rushing noise filled the world, pressing down on him until he couldn't hold on, pulling him away from everything and dropping him, still struggling, into unyielding darkness.


	13. Chapter 13

The shot shredded the silence, stopping John in his tracks. Soldier's instincts took over and he was crouched down before he knew it, flashlight off, gun at the ready, straining to hear over the residual hammering in his ears. His mind spun ahead without him, gauging the distance and the direction based on the volume.

It had come from somewhere above him, and in the direction Sherlock had gone.

"Shit!" John swore under his breath, pushing himself up again, abandoning the military training. He knew he should stay hidden until he'd fully assessed the situation – but this wasn't Afghanistan, and he had no time.

He thought he could hear sirens in the distance, but even waiting for back-up would take too long.

Every passing second meant another one that Sherlock might be bleeding out somewhere, dying alone in the dark.

 _No_ , he thought. He wouldn't let that happen.

Not now.

Not ever.

He ran – or tried to – memorizing his path in short, frantic bursts, scrambling downward as fast as he could. Each moment it took to make sure he wouldn't fall and break his neck was too long; he could feel time slipping away, maybe taking Sherlock with it.

 _No_ , he told himself again, refusing that reality.

It didn't have his permission to exist.

It never would.

John jumped off the last few rungs of the scaffolding to the ground, crouching to cushion his impact, and swung his flashlight around, letting it cut a clear path for him. The silence had wrapped around him again, smothering and almost impenetrable except for the sound of his own harsh breathing, of blood pounding in his ears as the ringing from the gunfire faded.

"Sherlock!" he shouted, unable to stop himself from giving up his location completely, flashlight zigzagging through the darkness, trying to pick up any hint of the detective in the shadows. "Sherlock!"

A sudden burst of light blindsided him and something grabbed him – John screwed his eyes shut and spun into the grip, throwing his weight against it. There was a distinctly female grunt as air was knocked out of lungs, but the grip didn't loosen. John slitted his eyes and swung the beam of his own flashlight into the woman's face.

"It's me!" Bridget said, letting go now to block her eyes with her arm. "John, it's me!"

He set his stance, dropping the flashlight just enough for her to uncover her face.

It _was_ her this time. John let himself feel a momentary flash of relief before supressing it, turning away.

"We need to get out," Bridget snapped, fingers clamping around his forearm again.

"Not a bloody chance!" he snarled. "Sherlock's still in here."

"The police will–"

He wrenched his arm away, ignoring her, intent only on Sherlock. How long had it been since the gunshot? He tried to calculate quickly, to estimate blood loss, but time seemed distorted, standing still and roaring past at the same time.

"Sherlock!" he shouted, partly to drown out the panic rising in his throat as he tried to pick up the detective's trail. "Sherlock!"

"Jesus," Bridget swore before shouldering ahead of him.

"What are you doing?" John demanded. She shot him a quick glance over her shoulder.

"My job," she replied shortly. "Trail's this way. Let's go."

He set his jaw, half wondering if he was being led astray. She had no reason to tell him the truth, but he had every reason to follow her – if she wasn't lying, she was his best chance to finding Sherlock before anything else happened.

If she was lying… John gritted his teeth, something turning cold in his chest.

He _was_ going to find Sherlock. Alive and in one piece.

If he had to, he'd burn the building – the whole of London – to the ground to make that happen.

* * *

There was light again. In patches. Jumping.

Maybe running.

He tried to follow but movement was heavy, like dragging through wet sand.

He shifted. The world spun. Tilted and turned, the light still playing around him, prisms in the sun. A solid band shot across the wall, closer to him. It caught against water, seeping toward him. Straight across. Defying gravity.

Sherlock reached toward it. It was too far, receding suddenly without moving. Creeping toward him without getting any closer. Black even in the light.

Black water on the wall.

He blinked – or dozed, so hard to tell, didn't matter – opened his eyes again.

Red.

Blood.

On the floor.

He wondered how. Wanted to ask. His tongue was thick in his mouth. Stubborn and clumsy.

" _The human body contains approximately five-point-five liters of blood."_

Lips twitched into a smile. Wool, soft-and-rough, warm against his fingertips. He pressed a thumb against it, along the harder ridge of bone and muscle beneath.

 _Yes_ , he told John. He remembered.

" _Blood loss of over forty percent of that volume is fatal without a transfusion."_

He nodded. The world shifted again, light-to-dark-to-light.

" _Please, god, let me live."_

A gasp caught in his throat, squeezing his chest.

 _No, John_ –

Cold.

Rough.

Bruising his fingertips, shocking nerves along his whole body. Sherlock reached out again, pressing down but the resistance fell away, refusing him, pinning him where he was.

A pool of blood. Black against the light. Stagnant.

_No! John!_

The blackness lit up. A blinding explosion, dragging defensive darkness with it. Even eyes closed didn't stop the agony from sudden movement that tore him from the steady light, the blood – _John_ – into chaos, an anarchy of sensations that made no sense, that wouldn't stop no matter how hard he fought, trying to impose order where there was none.

Pain flared along the back of his skull – Sherlock felt himself go limp with it, air leaving his lungs in a rush, embracing darkness as it rushed toward him, enveloping him, pulling him down.

" _Merde_! _Monsieur 'Olmes_! Can you 'ear me?"

The concrete came alive, wrapping around him. Pulling him back up – away from the darkness. Stealing warmth as it went. He tried to grasp it again, find his way back, but the path wound in on itself, leading to a hollow center where he could feel himself breathing, ragged and harsh, and the beating of drums.

A drum.

A heart.

 _John_.

He tried to make John's heartbeat steady but it wasn't, the pulse matching his lungs, hard and fast, not at all what John was meant to be, except for when he was, but it wasn't supposed to be like this, with every nerve screaming, making him scream from an unresponsive larynx, from numb lips, trapping the agony inside of him where it couldn't get out, where it wouldn't let him go–

"Come on, come on," John said, hand on Sherlock's face, fingertips like brands on his skin, leaving cooling, lonely patches when they moved. "Stay awake. Stay awake. We need to go."

Stay and go made no sense, he wanted to stay, he didn't want to go, they didn't _need_ to go, they never needed to go– he wanted to tell John but there was no way – they could just stay here and sink down from the pain and everything would make sense again, it _would_ , if John would just let it.

The world was yanked out from underneath him, falling away and upward at the same time, giving him nowhere to stand, nothing to stand _on_ except the pain that roared through him, still trapped inside, bouncing off the confines of his skin and reverberating, feeding on itself, tearing _him_ to shreds until there was nothing else left, nothing but the hammering in his head, in his ears–

" _No, don't", he said_ _and they didn't listen,_ why _didn't they_ listen _, "She doesn't–"_

 _Dark and light, a monochromatic impasse, and neither of them would listen and then–_ then _there was the explosion, a riot of sound and colour and the light vanished, collapsed on itself, colour blossoming from nothing, spilling outward–_

_A river of blood. On the floor._

It superimposed itself next to him, the image swelling before fading away, leaving a smeared handprint, painted in blood next to him – behind him now, falling away.

"Good, good," John was saying. "Come on."

It was an odd harmonic, the imbalance as out of sync as the rest of John was, jumbled up sensations, all at once unfamiliar and familiar – height, smell, sound, sight. A shoulder dug under one of his arms, all in the wrong place for John, light haired merged into dark then back again, features shifting and morphing, as if John were wearing a mask, switching the channel between himself and someone else.

There was blood on John's face. A smear like the one left behind them. And on his hand.

Whose was it?

A river of blood, on the floor.

Eye-level with him as it crept outward, trying to get away from the body that had contained it, broken free at last.

Brown eyes meeting his in the darkness, through the light that spilled out across both of them, but the gaze was blank, unreturned, recognition stamped out in a moment of furious sound.

His lungs tightened in a vice– air, he needed air _now_ , his body obeyed him – or itself – sucking in oxygen, tasting dust as it did, trying to shut that out while still taking in what it needed, sending a spasm through him.

"John–"

"It's all right, it's all right," John said in that same not-John voice, dark eyes meeting his again but there was light in them, recognition, not as deep as John's, like an awareness on the surface, never seeing everything John _would_ see, because _this wasn't_ John–

"You're fine, keep going," John said, nodding, encouraging. "Down we go, one step at a time, yes?"

He wanted to nod but the tilt of his head set off the fireworks again, everything else fading around him, the solid surface beneath his feet turning to jelly, pitching him in every direction.

"No, no, no," John said. "Stay awake! _Monsieur 'Olmes!_ Stay awake! Stay with me."

He sucked in another deep breath, desperate to obey– this is what John wanted, and he wanted John to be pleased– but there was something else there, something that caught his lungs again, making them burn.

It had a name, his brain fumbled for it, fighting itself – why was it always fighting, when had this started, he didn't remember this being so hard, it didn't used to be so hard – but his lips and tongue knew it without prompting, some age-old instinct bypassing everything else:

"Smoke."

* * *

Bridget stopped so abruptly that John ran into her, grunting as he tried to keep his footing, grabbing her instinctively to keep her upright.

"What–" he demanded but she held up a hand, the movement just visible in the light from his flashlight. Military instinct took over, freezing him, forcing him to wait.

"Inhale," Bridget ordered. "Deeply."

John did, then did it again, trying to convince himself he was wrong. But the acrid scent caught him again, sending warning sirens screaming in his brain, dropping a cold weight into his chest that fled down every vein.

"Smoke," he said.

"Fire," Bridget replied. "Come on, we need to get–"

" _Not without Sherlock._ "

"John–"

He grabbed her arm, not caring this time about the rough treatment, shining the beam of his light square in her eyes.

"I don't care if you go," he snarled. "I'm not leaving without him."

He pushed past her, uncaring, shouting Sherlock's name and running now, the beam of light cutting across Sherlock's faint footprints, the ones that only led into the building and upward. He tried to see their images reversed, overlaying the original ones, but the trail wouldn't lie to him.

Sherlock had gone in this way, but hadn't come back out.

"Sherlock!" he shouted, pounding toward a set of stairs, trying to convince himself that the taste of smoke on the air wasn't getting stronger, that his flashlight wasn't picking up anything more than dust kicked up by his footsteps. "Sherlock!"

Bridget was beside him again suddenly; John braced himself instinctively against being restrained, but she kept pace with him, echoing his shouts.

"Shit," he heard her mutter, coming to an abrupt stop. John went another two steps, forcing himself to slow down enough to see what had caught her attention. It should have been an outline of a person – Sherlock coming toward them through the shadows – but it was brighter than that, flickering as it inched toward them.

Bridget met his gaze in the light from their flashlights, the right side of her face turned faintly orange by the distant but approaching fire.

"Come on," she said roughly, taking the stairs two at a time. John pushed himself back into motion, outpacing her easily, shouting Sherlock's name, ignoring the burn in his lungs from the exertion and the encroaching smoke.

"Sherlock! _Sherlock_!"

He had to hear it, John told himself, shouting his partner's name again – and again and again, forcing himself to be louder each time, until Bridget caught his arm, fingers digging in, silencing him with a hiss.

He could feel the heat from the fire now, hear the cracking and splitting of wood as it lapped against the temporary structures – walls and platforms and stairways that were never meant to stay in place anyway.

"'Ello!" he heard, a male voice floating down from above, not Sherlock but with a familiar quality John couldn't place. He gave up trying, pushing himself onward. "'ere! We're up 'ere!"

The stairs seemed to stretch above them, the distance elongating rather than shrinking as they raced toward the voice, trying to outrun the fire.

His flashlight caught something suddenly, two figures almost blended into one, neither of them making sense until they resolved themselves into Sherlock, limp and supported by Alexandre Georges.

"What–" John started, confusion over Alexandre's sudden appearance stunning him into silence.

Doctor's instincts kicked in, frustrated with the rest of him, taking note of the blood on Alexandre's face and hands, along Sherlock's neck and beneath his ears, the laboured shallowness of the detective's breathing, the pallor of his skin.

Sherlock's gaze met John's, glassy and unfocused, but there was a glint of recognition in there, growing stronger when Sherlock reached for him, the movement so clumsy it almost stopped John from reaching back. His muscles moved without input from his brain, closing the distance to grasp Sherlock's hand. The detective leaned toward him, more of a slump than a deliberate motion; John caught him, steadying him.

Sherlock gave a shuddering sigh, and threw up on John.

"Christ!" John swore, forcing himself not to step back.

"I think 'e 'it 'is 'ead," Alexandre said, almost belatedly. The concussion was obvious, but not the most pressing of their worries now. John nodded, trying to take shallow breaths against the smell while keeping Sherlock upright.

"We need to go," Bridget said, and the snapping of the rapidly approaching fire hit John's ears again; if they didn't move, their exit would be cut off when the stairs burned. "You two, under one arm each. John, support his head."

John did as ordered, his hand coming away sticky with blood when they'd lowered Sherlock enough for Bridget to grab his legs, suspending the detective between the three of them. Back of the head, a hard enough blow to open a wound – Sherlock had probably been hit rather than accidently hit himself.

Panic flared; John suppressed it mercilessly, the effort making him snarl. He caught Alexandre's glance but ignored it – no time for explanations, not from him, not from their abruptly returned missing man.

They were all breathing smoke now, trying to keep their breathing shallow enough not to be overwhelmed by it, hampered by Sherlock's weight and the difficulty of managing flashlights while carrying a half-conscious person.

"Let's go," Bridget said. "We're not far now."

It was a lie but a necessary one; John managed to steal a glance at Sherlock's face as he adjusted his hold on his partner somewhat. He could see the struggle there – maybe only because he was a doctor, maybe only because he knew Sherlock so well. It didn't look like much from the outside, but Sherlock was fighting with everything he had left to stay awake.

John took that as a good sign.

"You'll be all right," he said, and that wasn't a lie. He wouldn't let it be. "Stay with us. Just a little while longer."


	14. Chapter 14

The air was thicker now, the smoke closing in on them ahead of the flames. John's eyes stung with it, tearing up in a futile defense. He blinked rapidly, feeling the tears track down his cheeks, but trying to clear his vision didn't help much. The flashlights were rapidly becoming useless, unable to cut through the haze.

His lungs burned; he needed to breathe deeply against Sherlock's weight slung between the three of them, but doing that would make him succumb faster to the smoke. He gritted his teeth against coughing, against the rattle in his lungs.

They didn't have time for that now.

They weren't going to make it out.

They _had_ to make it out.

John lurched to the left when Alexandre weakened suddenly, doubling over to cough, still holding Sherlock, but barely. John and Bridget managed to stabilize Sherlock, to keep from dropping him, but it was costing them precious seconds, continuing their exposure to the smoke.

"We're almost there," Bridget said, and John wondered if she really knew – and how – or if she was saying it to keep them going. "John, there are police outside by now. I'm going to get someone and bring them back to help. The two of you need to keep going. Understand?"

He nodded grimly at her – it was probably the best choice out of all the poor choices they had at the moment.

Bridget's gaze flickered to Alexandre, just visible in the weakened beam of John's flashlight.

"Alexandre, can you do this?" John asked.

Alexandre nodded, readjusting his grip; the surgeon in John railed against ignoring the obvious struggle.

He had no time to deal with that.

"Yes," Alexandre said. "I'm sorry."

"Let's go," John replied. He gave Bridget a final glance and a curt nod; she didn't hesitate before vanishing into the smoke, moving quickly without the burden of Sherlock's limp weight.

John swallowed against the apprehension that she might not come back at all – she'd saved their lives once before and had come with him to find Sherlock despite having no obligation to do so.

She was a search and rescue worker, he told himself. That meant something.

It was harder going with just the two of them, and impossible not to breathe deeply now, fighting for oxygen that was being devoured by the fire. They were dragging Sherlock, heedless of his feet trailing and bumping against the ground. If it injured him but got him out, it would be worth it. Choosing between Sherlock's complaints and sulks at being laid up and Sherlock's life was no choice at all.

"Here we go," John said, coming to the top of another set of stairs. Some hint of intuition told him it was the last one – he hoped like hell that wasn't a dark premonition. The heat from the fire was making him sweat, which made it harder to keep hold of Sherlock, and he could hear the flames all too clearly, cracking and engulfing the wooden structures behind him.

"Down!" John shouted, dropping into an awkward crouch, dragging Sherlock and Alexandre with him as he went, fighting to keep them steady when Alexandre nearly lost his balance. He curled himself over Sherlock's upper body, foreheads almost touching, wincing at the crash behind them and the sudden crackle and spike in the heat as the fire fed off new oxygen.

John felt suspended there, the temporary floor shuddering under his feet, a chaotic contrast to the faint brush of Sherlock's breath on his skin.

"Turn him around. Come on!" John said. Alexandre gave him a befuddled look that John tried not to resent – they didn't have time for confusion but he also didn't have time to be irritated at a man who had never been trained to do this and who had just been abducted.

It wasn't the best position by any stretch of the imagination; having Sherlock facing them, arms slung over their shoulders so that John and Alexandre were nearly walking sideways made the detective harder to hold onto – but it made it easier to move, especially down the stairs, keeping them from tripping on his feet.

Sherlock, with whatever awareness he still clung to, curled his hand weakly into the fabric of John's shirt, hanging on as best he could.

"Good," John murmured, half to himself, half to the detective, doubting Sherlock could even register it now. "Let's go."

They raced down the stairs as quickly as they could, flashlights nearly useless now, pressed as they were against Sherlock's body. The smoke obscured what weak light they were giving, but John couldn't spare the time to drop it, focusing on the fire chasing them, on staying conscious long enough to get out.

They hit the ground floor without being able to see it, both of them collapsing as muscles tried to keep carrying them down stairs that weren't there. John grunted, just managing to keep Sherlock from hitting the floor as Alexandre lost his hold on the detective completely.

He tried to haul himself back up, feeling a stab of panic at the sound of coughing beside him. His own lungs protested; John tried to fight them and failed, doubling over, trying to keep Sherlock in his grip as his lungs seized.

 _Come on, Watson!_ he shouted at himself.

Gritting his teeth hard, he swallowed against the coughing and forced himself back up.

"Get up," he ordered, not caring how harsh the order was – he couldn't drag Sherlock and Alexandre out and knew the choice he'd make if forced to.

Alexandre struggled to his feet, swaying, and there was suddenly someone in front of him, holding him steady. John blinked, convinced for a moment he was hallucinating, but the figure resolved itself into Bridget, followed by Greg Lestrade and Amanda Hassard materializing from the smoke.

"Get him," Bridget said to the two DIs, who swooped in without a word, taking Sherlock's weight from John. He almost clung to the detective, a panicked, instinctive reaction more than anything, but forced himself to let go.

A firm hand grabbed his, and Bridget helped pull him up, pushing Alexandre on in front of her. John steeled himself, grabbing Sherlock's legs – he could still do this, and neither DI complained at the sudden redistribution of the detective's weight.

"This way," Bridget said, cutting a path through the smoke from them, a hand around John's wrist and the other around Alexandre's to keep them in a chain, her pace urging them onward.

They broke into the night air as suddenly as John and Alexandre had come to the base of the stairs, the shock of fresh air making John stumble. Military and medical instinct made him let go of Sherlock as he lost his balance, vaguely aware of the grunt behind him as Lestrade and Amanda took all of Sherlock's weight.

"Keep moving," Bridget said, grasping him hard to keep him standing. John managed a nod, coughing but stumbling forward into the sudden and unexpected grasp of a PC who wrapped an arm around him, keeping him upright.

The sound of sirens and yelling voices hit him as if someone had unmuted the universe, hammering his eardrums. John tried to see around the smoke-sting in his eyes, the blurred images around him resolving slowly into emergency vehicles – police cars and ambulances with their lights flashing, fire engines swarming with firefighters trying to tackle the blaze. The tell-tale _whump-whump_ of helicopter blades cut through the air above them; John tried to tip his head back to see it and regretted it immediately when his vision blurred and nearly faded to nothing.

There was another set of hands on him suddenly and something strapped around his head – John tried to pull away, sucking in a deep breath of oxygen as he did, the sensation leaving him momentarily lightheaded. He stopped, nodding to the paramedic and the PC to indicate that he was all right, and leaned forward slightly, breathing in a few more times. The relief was short lived; the oxygen brought back some clarity of mind, and John pulled the mask off, turning back to Sherlock.

"He needs a hospital," he said to Lestrade and Hassard, who were still supporting Sherlock, waiting for a rapidly approaching team of paramedics carrying a stretcher.

"That's where he's going," Hassard replied. "You too. You've inhaled a lot of smoke."

"Not enough to do any damage," John said, closing the short distance between them to take Hassard's place supporting the nearly unconscious detective. "Get me some gauze!" he snapped, snagging the handful that was thrust at him by the paramedic and pressing it against the back of his partner's head.

Sherlock moaned, tipping his head slightly as if trying to get away; John held him firm, keeping a steady pressure on the wound, taking deep, slow breaths and blinking away the small, silver spots that danced around the edges of his vision.

"It's all right," he said, half for the detective and half for himself. "Sherlock, you're all right. You'll be fine."

Sherlock's eyelashes fluttered, lips moving slightly.

"You're okay," John said. "Just stay with us, stay awake, just a little while longer. You can do that."

Fingers tightened again where Sherlock's hand rested limply on John's shoulder. It was almost nothing, but John took it as a good sign, shifting a bit so the paramedic who had helped him could hold the oxygen mask over the detective's face.

John glanced up when the paramedics with the stretcher crouched down next to him, one of them trading places with Lestrade. Another pair of paramedics were treating Alexandre, under the watchful eye of Amanda Hassard who looked as though she was keeping a lid on a lot of questions. John didn't blame her, but they didn't have time for any explanations right now.

His eyes skittered over the group around him, police officers and paramedics and firefighters – and the notable absence of a search and rescue worker.

"Shit," he sighed, catching Lestrade's attention. The DI followed John's gaze, noting the same thing, and pushed himself up. John swallowed on a comment that Lestrade shouldn't bother trying to go after her, and refocused, helping the paramedics shift Sherlock onto a stretcher.

"You'll have to let us–"

"He's going with them," Lestrade snapped. "He's a surgeon. John, I'll be right behind you. We'll take care of the rest."

John nodded, pushing himself to his feet, gripping one of Sherlock's hands tightly to let the detective know he was there and, as much as he didn't want to admit it, to help him keep himself steady. The world spun gently before righting itself, still a panic of sirens and smoke, of yammering voices and the roaring fire.

He followed the path the paramedics cut for them, grateful to hand that responsibility off to someone else, and focused on talking to Sherlock, on keeping the detective as conscious as he could be while trying not to think about what had happened.

Both Mary and Adler had been in there – John was sure of that – and someone had hit Sherlock hard enough to incapacitate him.

One of them?

Or someone who worked for them?

He nearly snarled to himself – it didn't matter now.

Whoever had done this would pay. But not with Sherlock's life.

One of the paramedics helped haul John up into the ambulance, the sudden change in height making John lightheaded again. He set his jaw against it, crouching down at the foot of the stretcher where he could reach up to hold Sherlock's hand, however uncomfortable that was, to let the paramedics work. One of them thumped twice on the front of the ambulance and John braced himself as the vehicle rumbled to life, catching a nauseating whiff of the vomit he was still wearing.

He pushed that down too, squeezing Sherlock's hand.

"Stay with us, Sherlock. Stay awake. You can do it. Just stay awake a little while longer."

He might have been imagining the faint pressure of fingers around his but decided to believe in it anyway – Sherlock was fighting, John could see that, and the detective _was_ going to win.

John wouldn't let him get away with anything else.

He squeezed his partner's hand again, rubbing the inside of Sherlock's wrist with his thumb.

 _Don't go,_ he thought, trying to smother a flash of panic. _Please don't go without me._

"Good," he said, forcing the thoughts down, refusing to let them take hold. "You're doing great, Sherlock. Not much longer now. We're almost there."


	15. Chapter 15

Mycroft was already there when they arrived, looking unreasonably cool and put together despite the situation.

_Of course he is_ , John thought, annoyed at Mycroft's presence but more so that he couldn't really fault it – and it was useful.

"Does he have any metal in his body I don't know about?" John demanded, feeling a stab of bitter triumph when Mycroft looked nonplussed.

"What?"

"Does he have any metal in his body?" John repeated. "Any implants you might have stuck in him while he was away?"

"Doctor Watson, I assure you–"

"Yes or no, Mycroft!"

"No," Mycroft replied, expression entirely put out. John ignored that, probably irritating Mycroft even more, turning to meet the triage doctor and two nurses who had joined them hurriedly.

It was a struggle to let the paramedics do their job and report Sherlock's vitals; the details swum past John as he moved through the A&E – _thirty-six year old male, struck on the back of the head, pupils responsive, BP ninety over sixty, pulse…_ – a barebones sketch that didn't come close to fleshing out the reality that was Sherlock.

"No medical allergies and no current medications," John supplied, "but he used to be a cocaine addict."

The doctor nodded, as if unsurprised by the statement, and didn't ask who he was. John suspected Mycroft's hand in that but didn't bother feeling anything about it. He could be grateful later; right now wasn't the time.

"You'll need to get out of that if you want to be in here," the doctor said, nodding at John. He glanced down, scowling at his sick-covered shirt, and followed one of the nurses willingly when she led him away. Protesting would only delay everything, and he had no intention of leaving Sherlock alone longer than necessary.

She gave him a hospital gown and a biohazard bag for his shirt; John ducked into a toilet, half wishing he'd been wearing a light jacket or jumper, but the August temperatures hadn't necessitated that. He stuffed the shirt in the bag, happy to see the back of it, and cleaned up his jeans as best he could. Sherlock had, luckily enough – if it could be called luckily – thrown up mostly on John's shirt.

He donned the gown, annoyed at the stupidity of it, but didn't let that slow him down. The bag containing the shirt was returned to the nurse; John left her to dispose of it, intent on getting back to Sherlock.

They'd propped him up by the time John got back, one of the paramedics and the other nurse bracing him as the doctor cleaned the wound, a look of intense concentration on her face.

"Needs stitches," she said curtly when John stepped back into the scant privacy afforded by the curtain.

John felt his stomach sink even though the pronouncement wasn't a surprise. Sherlock had been bleeding far too much for the doctor in John to expect anything else, but the rest of him rebelled at the idea.

"Shave as little of his hair as possible," he said.

The doctor looked up, giving him a grim smile, but there was an unexpected light in her eyes.

"Don't worry, Doctor Watson. I read the blog."

Watching everything made him feel dislocated, like an out-of-body experience or unrelenting déjà vu. John wrestled the urge to take charge of Sherlock's care himself as the detective – fully unconscious now – was hooked to an IV line and less obstructive oxygen tubes, as the bleeding was staunched and the wound stitched shut.

He could have done it himself, even the careful scrape of a blade around the injury – he'd done it enough times before, patching Sherlock up after some reckless and exhilarating adventure.

But he couldn't. Not this time. It wasn't his hospital but that wasn't all of it – the gash on the back of Sherlock's scalp made him want to vomit, filling him with a rage so bright it was hard to see around it, or to think. It had nowhere to go because he had no idea who to blame.

Mary or Adler.

It didn't matter.

They'd both strung Sherlock along, using Alexandre as bait, using Sherlock as their go-between.

They'd both lured Sherlock there.

Both of them would pay.

John swallowed hard, reasserting some control, balling his hands into fists.

That didn't help, only made him remember Sherlock in Mycroft's office earlier that day – yesterday now – thumbs digging into John's tense palms. His left hand shook, the intermittent tremor that had kept him from re-qualifying as a surgeon brought on by the impotent fury and the smoke he'd inhaled.

It didn't go unnoticed by the A&E doctor either. She brooked no argument, giving him the choice of staying and using the oxygen mask or being restrained by security and using the oxygen mask.

John stayed, and tried not to resent her skills being directed at him.

It did help, even if he wasn't willing to admit it out loud, and by the time Sherlock was stitched, bandaged, and ready to be whisked away for an MRI, she was willing to let John go with him, unencumbered by any medical equipment.

It probably wasn't the best option, he knew, but they'd need an entire army to drag him away from Sherlock.

He lingered in the MRI room as long as he could, watching hawklishly as the orderlies unhooked Sherlock from the oxygen and the IV drip and transferred him to the scanner bed. One of the nurses had given him a sedative to keep him from waking up and panicking, and it unnerved John to see how limp and unresponsive Sherlock was.

It reminded him too much of the body on the pavement outside of Bart's, hollow and empty.

_It's not the same_ , he told himself firmly, squeezing Sherlock's ankle as the orderlies settled him, angry at the faint tremor that persisted in his left hand.

John resisted checking for a pulse; he could see Sherlock breathing, the detective's chest rising and falling slowly as he slept, sedated, through the preparations.

John waited until the orderlies had left, until the tech in the booth knocked on the glass, gesturing for John to join him.

"I'm not going far," John whispered, squeezing Sherlock's ankle again. "I'll be right here."

John scrutinized the images as the appeared on the screen, looking in vain for anything he could identify, but even the tech's assurance that he wasn't seeing anything out of the ordinary didn't help. John gave up, exhaustion sweeping in like he'd given it permission to do so, and for a moment he felt dizzy and dislocated.

He swallowed that hard, forcing it aside; he certainly didn't have time to think about anything else right now. The moment the scan was complete, he was back in the room, talking quietly to Sherlock, who hadn't so much as stirred.

The detective _had_ changed during the scan though – the black eyes that had been forming when they'd brought him in had darkened and expanded, smudging dark circles on his pale face. Combined with the thick helmet of bandages wrapped around his head, it made him look garish, like he'd been made up for some cheap horror film.

"You were brilliant. As usual," John said, squeezing Sherlock's unresponsive hand, letting go – reluctantly – when the orderlies came back in with the gurney to transfer him to the ICU.

The ICU nurse gave John some paperwork to sign – mostly to keep him busy, John suspected, while the staff got Sherlock settled. That didn't take long, but every second seemed to stretch itself out, making him edgy and impatient.

The nurse finally let him in, doing a quick scan of Sherlock's vitals and making a few notes before leaving them in the ICU's stifling silence.

John sagged, fatigue dropping onto him like a collapsing cliff. He sank into the chair next to Sherlock's bed, fumbling for the detective's hand, keeping himself anchored to Sherlock as much as it kept Sherlock anchored to him.

Given the opportunity, everything struck at once – exhaustion, thirst, hunger, confusion, isolation. He leaned forwards, dropping his head between his knees, inhaling long, slow breaths through his nose until the worst of the dizziness cleared.

But he was a doctor, and he knew it wouldn't go away without food and water.

Knowing that didn't change a damn thing. He wasn't going to leave Sherlock like this, unconscious and injured.

The twitch of the curtain made him look up – he thought he could ask the nurse at least for a cup of water – but her form resolved itself, confusingly, into Harry, who was carrying a bundle of cloth in one arm and giving him a concerned once over.

It was clothing she was carrying, he realized belatedly. And he was still in the gown the hospital had given him.

Harry enveloped him into a tight hug, only letting go with obvious reluctance.

"Amanda called me," she whispered, voice still sounding too loud in the oppressive hush of the ICU. "How is he?"

"Stable," John said. "We won't know much more until we get the MRI back but… I don't know, Harry. I don't know."

She nodded, squeezing his arm.

"And you?"

"Yeah, good, fine," John replied, the words delivered automatically, with no real truth behind them.

"Bollocks, you're absolutely shattered, John. You need to eat."

"I can't–"

"Mycroft's outside very poshly demanding to see his brother. Sherlock won't be alone. And Greg wants to talk to you."

"Greg?" John asked, feeling thick as soon as he'd said it. Lestrade had followed him to the hospital and had probably been waiting ever since.

And very likely waiting with Mycroft. John felt a bit bad about that.

"Go get changed," Harry said, giving his arm another gentle squeeze. "I'll wait here."

John ducked into the loo, shedding the hospital gown and his somewhat whiffy jeans for the fresh clothing Harry had brought. He stuffed the rest of it in uncaringly in the bin and swapped places with his sister while she fetched Mycroft.

He wasn't leaving Sherlock alone for a single second, not with Mary and Adler still out there.

"He wants to talk to you first," Harry said, coming back in. John rolled his eyes and considered refusing. Mycroft probably wouldn't stoop to having security round him up and escort him out, but the elder Holmes brother would certainly wait until John gave in.

Better to get it over with.

Mycroft and Lestrade were in the tiny waiting room just outside of the ICU; John repressed a sense of dread at the way the heavy door fell shut with a decisive click, fumbling slightly when a takeaway bag was deposited into his hands.

"Eat this first," Lestrade said.

The burger and chips were a like manna from heaven; John wished someone could have smuggled in a beer – or five – but made do with the water instead. He ate as slowly as he could make himself, listening to Lestrade hush Mycroft sharply every time Sherlock's brother started to ask about Sherlock's condition.

"He's stable," John said, repeating the information he'd given Harry as he crumbled up the last of the food wrappers. "We'll know more when we get the MRI results, and when he wakes up."

"And when will that be?" Mycroft asked dryly.

"When he wakes up," John replied shortly, rubbing his hands together and looking at Lestrade. "How's Alexandre?"

"Shaken up, as you can imagine. But physically he was unharmed."

"How the hell did he find Sherlock?" John demanded. "Where the bloody hell did he come from?"

"That's all still a bit unclear," Lestrade said, holding up his hands when John started to interject. " _But_ he was able to tell us that it was a woman who rescued him – he couldn't see her very well, it being dark, but she had a flashlight and it was enough for him to see she had short dark blond or light brown hair. And she spoke to him in French."

"Mary," John sighed, sitting back in his chair.

"Seems like a good bet," Lestrade replied. "She cut him free, gave him a flashlight, told him how to get out and where to find Sherlock."

_She was there_ , John realized – he'd known but this confirmed it.

She might well be the reason Sherlock was lying in the ICU, unconscious, battered, and bandaged.

John balled his hands into fists to keep them from shaking.

"We also found this on the site," Lestrade continued, pulling his phone from his pocket and extending it to John, who took it reflexively.

It was a body – a woman's body, impeccably dressed, hair obviously carefully styled at one point, although most of it had shaken free, matted with dark blood. She was ringed with forensic markers and artificial lights, and laid out almost like she'd been staged: on her back, face turned towards the sky, wearing a slightly surprised expression.

With a bullet hole right in the center of her forehead.

"Jesus Christ," John said, passing the phone back. "Is that– is it her, Mycroft? _Really_."

"As far as well can tell," Mycroft replied.

"As far as– as far as you can tell? She bloody faked you out last time– the last two times! You need to do better than 'as far as we can tell'!"

"We're working on it," Mycroft replied.

"Do better than that!" John snarled, pushing himself to standing, leaning over Mycroft, who pulled back slightly in surprise. "Because the _real_ her might still be out there!"

"We're aware–"

"You're always bloody aware! _Do_ something about it this time!"

"John," Lestrade said, and John took a deep breath, calming himself down with substantial effort.

He wasn't about to be kicked out of the hospital because of Mycroft's pig-headedness.

"She was shot point-blank range in the head and then dumped there. She _wasn't_ shot there – no brain matter, not enough blood – so someone had to have put her there."

"You think Mary–"

"Or Sherlock," Mycroft said, quietly.

John turned on him with a snarl, barely managing to wrestle it down when Lestrade intervened again.

"He had his gun on him, but it hadn't been fired. We're testing the clothes he came here in for residue, but no, the Met _doesn't_ think it was him."

"Mary then," John said.

"Or one of her people, yes. We need to talk to Sherlock. It's likely he was there, or close by."

"And you bloody well know likely he won't remember a damn thing when he wakes up," John said. "Someone hit him hard enough to ensure that."

"We'll do what we can," Lestrade said.

"In the meantime, I'd like to see him," Mycroft cut in coolly. "Our parents would like some reassurance that their youngest son is still alive and breathing."

"You have five minutes," John said. "Then you're done. I'll stay with him tonight and _in the meantime_ you'll sort this shit out and find out if that's really Irene Adler so I bloody well have _something_ to tell Sherlock when he wakes up."


	16. Chapter 16

The shift of fingertips against his palm jolted John awake, and doctor's instincts took over, getting him up and on his feet before he was fully conscious.

He tightened his grip comfortingly around Sherlock's, feeling the twitch as the detective mustered a weak response, eyelashes fluttering as he blinked himself awake. Sherlock was still ghostly pale – save for the dark circles stamped around his eyes – and his gaze was glassy and unfocused.

None of that was surprising, so John forced a smile, squeezing Sherlock's hand again.

"Welcome back."

Sherlock's lips moved soundlessly, and a weak cough made him wince. John plucked a cup of ice cubes from the tray beside the bed, cradling Sherlock's head very carefully to feed him a few small chips.

"Easy, easy," John murmured when Sherlock scowled, reaching up clumsily to tug at the oxygen tube resting under his nose. "You need that." He moved Sherlock's hand away gently, feeling a stab of relief when the detective tried briefly – and ineffectually – to resist.

That stubborn streak was, at least, familiar.

"You were hit on the head. You'll be fine," he said, inwardly ignoring the fact that this was the third concussion Sherlock had had since coming back to London – the first courtesy of Lestrade, the second during a sticky situation on a case. Sally Donovan had rescued him from that, but not in time to prevent any damage being done.

And the effects were cumulative.

Sherlock was used to treating his body like a punching bag, but that wouldn't stop reality from catching up with it.

The curtain twitched aside, letting John shelve those thoughts, to admit a doctor John hadn't met yet, who appraised Sherlock sharply and introduced herself as his neurologist.

"Good to see you awake, Mister Holmes," she said, her tone lighter than her gaze. "I'm just going to ask you a few questions."

She ran him through the basics – his name, date of birth, the current year – and John tried not to let it bother him how readily Sherlock answered and how befuddled he seemed, not by the questions themselves but by why they were being asked.

The obstinacy John had just seen was gone, and there was no put upon impatience in Sherlock's answers, no eye rolling or protests that his time was being wasted.

That wasn't unexpected, he told himself.

And it was a very good sign that Sherlock was getting everything right.

"His MRI showed some bruising but that's not unexpected with a concussion. Overall, it looks good," she said, and the wave of relief was almost strong enough to knock John off his feet. "But I'm ordering a PET scan just to be on the safe side. We'll do one now, and follow up once things have calmed down a bit, to make sure everything is working properly."

John nodded, trying to stamp down the anxiety; the sensitivity of a PET scan made it a logical decision, but the idea of another test unsettled him, stripping away some of the relief from the reasonably clean MRI.

Sherlock was awake and coherent, he told himself.

Given the situation, that counted for a lot.

"The nurse will bring in some forms for you to sign, Doctor Watson," she said, giving him a comforting smile. "This really is precautionary. I'm satisfied with the MRI results for the time being."

Mycroft had probably had a hand in this, but John felt hard-pressed to resent it. He nodded silently, and she slipped out, leaving him alone with Sherlock in the overbearing silence of the ICU ward.

A nurse came in a moment later with more paperwork, which John signed perfunctorily, skimming the information just carefully enough to reassure himself that he was only agreeing to this, and that Mycroft hadn't tried to slip in any other tests or treatments.

John wouldn't put it past Mycroft to use the opportunity to something Sherlock had always resisted – or to test for recent drug use.

Fingers tugged lightly at his shirt and John glanced down, startled to see Sherlock's anxious gaze darting back and forth between him and the privacy curtain. John took his partner's hand, squeezing gently but warmly, putting on his best reassuring doctor's expression, grateful that Sherlock wasn't able to see right through it.

"It's all right," he said. "It's just a scan."

Sherlock nodded once, grey eyes flickering back to the curtain before glancing pleadingly back at John.

"Whose pet are they going to use?" he managed, voice hoarse and barely above a whisper.

"What?" John asked, the absurdity of the question catching him off guard for a moment before his tired mind caught up. "No, it's a scan, Sherlock. It means positron emission tomography. It's just computers. All right?"

Sherlock nodded, looking entirely unconvinced, uncertainty etched around his bruised eyes.

"Just computers," John said, running a thumb along the ridge of Sherlock's knuckles, a touch he'd used more than once to calm the detective's nightmares. It seemed to help; some of the tension ebbed from Sherlock's features, but there was still an undercurrent of trepidation there. "No pets at all. I promise. Okay?"

"Okay," Sherlock agreed. John pressed his partner's fingers to his lips.

"You can just sleep," he said. "It'll be over sooner that way."

"Okay," Sherlock murmured. His eyelids dropped shut for a moment before he forced them open again, fighting a losing battle as he drifted off.

_There you are_ , John thought, wondering if he was only trying to convince himself. Sherlock struggled for a moment longer before succumbing, the tension leaking from his features and his grip relaxing in John's hand.

John tightened his own grip in response, hoping for some small reaction and chastising himself when he didn't get it.

Waking Sherlock up now served no purpose; not only would sleeping through the scan make the procedure easier, but rest was the best thing for him right now.

Given how difficult it normally was to convince Sherlock of that, John told himself to take what he could get.

It didn't help much, but at least it partway convinced him that he had a plan.

The early hours of the morning passed in a blur. John went with Sherlock for the PET scan, feeling extraneous and useless as the hospital staff got on with their jobs, moving Sherlock from the ICU and back, detaching and reattaching IV lines and monitors.

It was suffocating having no other role than waiting; there was so much that the nurses and orderlies were doing that he could have done instead, but it would only get in their way and get him escorted out by security.

He wasn't leaving Sherlock alone, not for a single second.

The ICU was as quiet as it had been when they'd left; John dropped back into his chair, ignoring the aches and protests from stiff muscles that longed for a comfortable bed.

_Going soft, Watson_ , he told himself with a scowl. He'd put up with much worse in Afghanistan. He _would_ put up with much worse for Sherlock, if he had to.

John dozed a bit, Sherlock's hand in his, aware of the faint beeping that kept track of Sherlock's heart rate, of the sound of rubber soles squeaking gently on hard floors as the nurses went about their business. Once or twice, he woke up when one of them checked on Sherlock, taking note of the detective's vitals and giving John a warm smile. He thought he mustered a smile in response, but was too tired to care.

He drifted off again, slipping into a deeper sleep this time, where the only sensation he was really aware of was Sherlock's cool fingers in his. Some distant, medical part of him knew it wasn't enough but there was no other choice – or none that he would ever make.

Their bed would still be there when they got home. He could wait.

"John."

His name startled him awake, his brain trying to resolve the sound into Sherlock's voice instead of the female one he thought he'd heard – but when he blinked his eyes open, stifling a groan as he shifted in the now-uncomfortable chair, he saw Amanda Hassard watching him, expression etched with concern.

"Amanda. Hi," he managed, scrubbing his eyes before casting a critical gaze over Sherlock; the detective was still asleep or unconscious, breathing slowly, his pulse not as strong as John would have liked to have seen, but nowhere near critical.

"Sorry to wake you," Amanda whispered, slipping fully into the tiny curtained space.

"No, it's okay. What's wrong? It is Harry?"

She gave him a bemused look, shaking her head.

"Harry's fine – we've had a watch on her all night, but Mary has no reason to go after her. If she wanted to talk to either of you, she has other ways."

John scrubbed his face again, trying vainly to chase away some of the fatigue that clung to the edges of his brain.

"Have you found Bridget?" he asked. Amanda scowled, giving her head a curt shake.

"No. Not for lack of trying."

John sighed and nodded; he hadn't really imagined the police would be able to track Bridget down. She'd proven adept at vanishing and reappearing whenever she wanted to – John suspected she could vanish and simply choose not to surface again.

And with Mary's resources, she'd have no problems never being seen again.

"What then?" he asked, somewhat belatedly, berating himself for being so slow.

"We still need to talk to you," Amanda pointed out. "And the rest of Sherlock's family needs to see him."

"The rest of– no. I _told_ Mycroft–"

"Sherlock's parents are here, too," Amanda interjected gently.

That brought John up short – he snapped his mouth closed, frantically trying to determine how he could refuse that. He had no qualms about turning Mycroft away, but Sherlock's parents… He'd never met them – and this was probably the worst possible way to do so, he realized – but Sherlock was their son and had never spoken badly about them.

He'd never really spoken about them at all.

"Yeah," John conceded. "All right."

"I'll wait here," Amanda promised, and John resigned himself to facing Sherlock's family without any backup. He stepped reluctantly into the ICU waiting room, relieved to find Greg Lestrade there, giving Mycroft a warning glower the older Holmes brother was ignoring pointedly.

The introductions were short, for which John was grateful. He shook hands and answered questions about Sherlock's health on autopilot, almost glad he had so little to report. When the three of them left, John sagged onto one of the waiting room sofas, mumbling a thanks for the takeaway cup of tea Lestrade put in his hands.

He sipped it gingerly – mostly it was just hot, without any real flavour, the way takeaway tea so often was. John didn't care. The heat and the caffeine helped, making him feel somewhat more human.

A soft knock on the door admitted Sherlock's neurologist, followed by Amanda Hassard. The doctor gave John a questioning look and he waved a hand vaguely, shaking his head.

"It's all right, they're friends," he said.

"The PET scan didn't show anything new," she told him. "Mild swelling, but there was no real change in that between the MRI and the PET. We'll keep an eye on it, but the fact that Sherlock was awake and coherent – even for a few minutes – is a really good sign. I'd like to keep him in ICU for the day. If we see progress, or even no real change, by this evening, we can look at moving him."

Relief flooded through John and he managed a nod, thanking her. She smiled sympathetically.

"The best thing you could do right now, Doctor Watson, is get some rest."

He nodded again but didn't mean it this time; he wasn't leaving Sherlock unattended.

"Good advice," Lestrade said, pushing himself to his feet, beckoning to John.

"What–" John started.

"I'm taking you home. You can shower. And get a few hours sleep in an actual bed."

"No," John said, the stab of fear turning his voice hard. "Not a chance. I'm not leaving him alone–"

"You won't be," Amanda said. "I'll stay, even if Mycroft and his parents have to leave."

"You've got work," John protested.

Amanda raised her eyebrows, giving him a look that told him he'd said something ridiculous.

"Part of my job _is_ protecting witnesses, John. And he witnessed something, whether or not he'll remember it. Not to mention he helped us find Alexandre. I'll be here until you get back."

"We could always arrest you," Lestrade said, entirely too cheerfully for John's taste. The neurologist tried to hide a smile as she left.

"Fine," John sighed, pushing himself to his feet. He wouldn't put it past Lestrade and Amanda to actually arrest him, nor for Amanda to rope Harry into it, to guilt John only the way a sister could.

That wasn't at all police procedure – but then again, neither was most of the work Sherlock did for the Met.

"I'll call you if anything changes," Amanda promised.

"In the meantime, we can go through all the interesting evidence Sherlock's bound to have in your flat," Lestrade added. "Alexandre couldn't tell us much, but I bet Sherlock can. It'll be even easier without him calling me an idiot the whole time or refusing to explain what he thinks is blindingly obvious."

"You can have all of it," John promised.

If the Woman _was_ really dead this time, he wanted nothing more to do with her. She'd done enough damage. So had Mary.

If Sherlock had been able, he'd probably have protested John's readiness to tell Lestrade everything – he would want the triumph of explaining it all, the recognition of his brilliance, the praise for his work.

And John would love watching it, soaring on the same post-case high, the same sense of victory over someone who had dared to take something that wasn't theirs.

But Sherlock wasn't able. The police could have everything. John wasn't wasting a second more than he had to on the case now, but he'd be damned if he didn't give the Met any and every tool he had to track down whoever had done this to Sherlock.


	17. Chapter 17

"Drink this."

John took the glass of whiskey that was extended to him, considered the early hour for a moment, then drank it anyway. Lestrade took the empty glass from him, refilled it, and passed it back. The second shot left John's head swimming a bit, but somehow also made him feel more human.

"Right," he said, steeling himself.

He took Lestrade through all of it, from Ronald Adair's murder, to the mysterious letter supposedly from Alexandre, to Richard Douglas and Karam Sarraf and the symbols in the tunnel that came from the cover of Alexandre's latest novel. He tried to keep it as straightforward as possible, but it was complicated enough without the haze of exhaustion, and John was glad Lestrade was recording everything and taking notes.

He handed over all of the papers Sherlock had collected that went with each case. Sherlock would be angry about that when he woke up – or at least when he became aware enough to understand it – but John didn't care.

It wasn't going to Mycroft (at least not directly) and if it helped the police sort out the rest of this mess before Sherlock was recovered, so much the better.

Once Lestrade had gone, John shaved and took a hot shower, then fixed himself a comforting cup of tea before crawling into bed. It felt strange without Sherlock there, but the incessant worry wasn't enough to keep his eyes from falling shut.

He awoke sometime later, disoriented, sitting up in a half-panic before he remembered where he was and why Sherlock wasn't there. John fumbled for his phone on the bedside table, relief and unease mingling when the screen showed no missed calls or messages. He was glad he hadn't slept through an emergency call from the hospital, but a text from Sherlock would have gone a long way towards making him feel better.

With a soft groan, John pushed himself out of bed, stretching slightly in a vain attempt to dislodge all the aches and pains that came from living overnight in an ICU ward. The shower and the nap in his own bed had helped, but he still felt disconnected from reality, like he'd taken a step to the side and was only watching normal life happen around him.

"Right," he muttered to himself. "Keep it together."

His phone buzzed, Amanda's number on the screen making it difficult to breathe. John answered hurriedly, trying to swallow the rising panic.

"It's all right," she said immediately, foregoing a greeting, her voice barely above a whisper. "He's still asleep, but he's restless. I thought it might help to hear your voice. One second."

John kept quiet for a moment, hearing the faint rustle as the phone was moved and, presumably, held to Sherlock's ear. He could hear Sherlock breathing, more rapidly and shallowly than a sleeping person should.

"Hey," he said. "Sherlock, it's all right. It's all right."

Sherlock made a faint noise on the other end of the line, the noise he made when John talked him through his nightmares. John winced, grateful Amanda couldn't see him and that she didn't know anything more about Sherlock's restlessness than this.

John didn't let himself think, but just talked, keeping his voice low and steady, carrying on a one-sided conversation about whatever came to mind. It worked well enough when Sherlock had bad nights and John hoped like hell it was working now.

"That's good," Amanda said after a few minutes. "He's settled now."

"I'm on my way," John said, digging out a fresh pair of jeans as he rung off. It was no more than a few minutes until he'd put himself together, collecting his phone, wallet, and keys, and he had a stroke of Sherlock's good luck on the street, where a few empty cabs were on their way past.

Amanda was waiting for him in the ICU at Bart's, looking tired enough that John felt a pang of guilt. She'd doubtlessly been up all night, and probably most of the day when he'd been at home napping. But she smiled reassuringly even as John cast a critical gaze over Sherlock and the equipment monitoring his vital signs.

"He's woken up a few times, only for a few seconds at a time, but I think he had some idea where he is."

"Why?" John asked.

"Because he looked around for you, then gave me a good Sherlock scowl when he realized you weren't here. Then went back to sleep – pretty deliberately, I think."

John nodded, hoping the wave of relief wasn't too visible on his features.

"Greg called, said the information you gave him has helped a lot. There's more to chase down, of course, but it helps that we have all of the pieces."

"We still don't know who shot Adler," John pointed out, working to keep his tone neutral and quiet enough for the ICU. "Or even if that really was Adler."

Amanda gave him a wry look, one that he couldn't quite read.

"Actually, we do. On both counts."

"What?" John demanded. "How?"

"We have an eye-witness to the shooting," Amanda said, glancing quickly at Sherlock.

"What? How could he– you said he'd only been awake a few seconds."

"I did," she agreed. "But it's not for nothing he's a genius." Amanda paused, pulling Sherlock's phone from her pocket. "He recorded everything. From the moment you called the police until the battery died. I need to verify with someone who knows the voices, but the conversations are a good enough indication of who it is."

John held out his hand, and Amanda gave him the phone, along with her headphones and a grim look.

"There's a gunshot – be ready for it. I wasn't."

John nodded, feeling a pang of sympathy and wondering if her ears were still ringing slightly. Even recorded from a distance, and muffled by Sherlock's clothing, it had to be loud. It had been loud enough from where he'd been in the construction site.

Sherlock had been much closer to it, John realized abruptly. He'd answered the neurologist's questions readily enough, but John added hearing checks to his mental list of Sherlock's care needs.

He took the chair, aware of Amanda watching him intently as he listened to the recording – first himself speaking, very muffled, to the police, followed by a period of silence when they'd crossed the site. Their brief discussion about rescuing the fake Bridget was followed by an even longer silence, punctuated abruptly by Sherlock speaking – and being replied to.

"That's Adler," he confirmed, forcing himself to stay as relaxed as possible while listening to the verbal dance.

Even after everything, she'd been trying to string Sherlock along, and Sherlock, despite himself, had been playing along. Even if it was mostly for information, John knew there was some small part of the detective that still needed that thrill, that flirtation with danger.

Changing that would be changing Sherlock, and John had no desire to do that.

He just wished Adler would stop providing it.

The abruptness of another voice made him jump slightly, warning flares going off in his bad shoulder at the sudden tension.

"That's Mary," John whispered around the blood hammering in his ears. Even on the recording, the sound of something striking the back of Sherlock's head – the butt of a gun, probably – was audible. As was the clatter and faint crunch when the phone, in Sherlock's pocket, hit the concrete floor.

He took a deep breath, deliberately relaxing his grip on the phone.

If they found Mary, he was going to kill her.

Mycroft could bloody well sort out the rest.

The rest of the conversation was muted; John turned it down as much as he could while still being able to hear it. The gunshot was a shock nonetheless, even though he'd been expecting it and had heard it once before. He shut off the app and handed the phone back to Amanda.

"Three voices: Sherlock, Irene Adler, and Mary," he confirmed, voice flat. "Which means Mary shot Adler. If that was really Adler."

"I think it was," Amanda said, "because I also got this."

She handed him her own phone, with a text message from a blocked number.

_That was Irene Adler. Sherlock and John will want to know._

"Christ," John sighed, dropping his head into his hands. "Where is she?"

"Mary? We haven't–"

"Adler. Where's Adler. Her body."

"The morgue. Here," she replied, watching him carefully.

"I need to see it," John said, pushing himself to his feet.

"I don't think that's–"

"I need to see it, Amanda. Mary's word bloody well isn't good enough!"

Amanda made a sharp gesture and John set his jaw, taking a deep breath and forcing himself to lower his voice.

"Can you stay here awhile longer with him? I won't be long. I need to know. _He_ needs to know." John nodded at Sherlock, who hadn't so much as shifted since the doctor had returned. "He won't believe anyone else. Not on this."

_He might not even believe me_. John tried to displace that thought, balling his hands into fists to keep it contained.

Amanda gave him a hard look then a curt nod, as if agreeing against her better judgment. She probably was, but John didn't care. He didn't need her permission, he only needed her to stay with Sherlock.

He hurried down to the morgue, somewhat startled to find Molly on duty. With everything going on, he hadn't really put two and two together – but of course she'd be here. And of course she knew what had happened, he realized as she asked him how he was and how Sherlock was doing. Lestrade would have told her, and she'd have Adler – hopefully the real Adler this time – in her morgue again.

"I went up to see him," Molly said, watching John as carefully as Amanda had just been, and he wondered how he looked. Maybe like a landmine about to go off. "I hope that's okay."

"Of course it's okay," John said, feeling disjointed at the fact that she was half apologizing. "You're his friend, Molly. I'm sorry – I should have told you."

"John, no, you had Sherlock to think about. Greg told me. He came in just before, um, she– the body did. You want to see it, don't you?"

"Yeah," John said, setting his jaw. Molly looked hesitant, gazed fixed on her gloved hands.

"I've seen a photo," John said. "And believe me, I've seen worse."

"No– I mean of course you have, but it's not that," Molly replied, looking back up at him, brown eyes bright with reluctance. "It's, um– I'm sorry, John, but Sherlock's brother made me promise I'd tell him if you came down to see it. Her."

John expelled a harsh sigh, holding up a hand to stave off another apology from Molly, who didn't owe it to him.

"Of course he did," he said. "Figures. Call him then. I don't want you getting into trouble on my account."

She nodded and John hovered out of earshot while she made the call, aware of her guilty glances. He didn't care what Mycroft did, so long as it got him access to Adler's body.

"Come with me," Molly said when she'd gestured John back inside. He steeled himself, following her down the short corridor, willing himself to be patient and not push past her or trip her up.

None of this was her fault. No matter how stupid the whole situation was, Molly was only doing her job, and John couldn't blame her for that.

She pulled a body from cool storage for him, anonymous under a white sheet. Molly gave John a questioning look, taking a deep breath when he nodded and drawing the sheet back to expose the head and neck.

It looked better than in the photo – someone had cleaned it up, so there was no blood on the forehead or matted in the hair, and the eyes were closed. John stared at the face for a moment, then took the sheet from Molly without comment and pulled it off, ignoring her startled gasp.

Sherlock wasn't the only one who'd seen Adler naked, and John _was_ a doctor, after all.

He forced himself to take his time, studying her face carefully, opening her eyes one at a time to check the colour. The last time he'd seen someone claiming to be her in the morgue, the face had been ruined beyond recognition.

This _looked_ like her, from head to toe.

But it could be faked.

Sherlock had done just that himself, with the lookalike that Moriarty had used and disposed of.

Adler could have done the same.

But it had been her voice on the recording, and there had been a gunshot. The body on the slab had died of a bullet to the brain.

It added up.

He didn't want to trust it, not yet, but Mary had sent that text. She would cover all of her bases and John knew her well enough to know that when she wanted something done, she did it right.

Assuming it was actually her who had sent the text, of course.

The constant whirlwind of suspicion exhausted him suddenly, and John wished he were alone so he could sag into a chair without needing to explain himself. The prospect of crawling onto a gurney and being enclosed in one of the small lockers where the bodies were stored was shockingly appealing – he wanted to shut out everything else and just sleep, so that when he woke up, all of this insanity would be over.

He took another deep breath, steeling himself, wondering how much longer he could keep doing that.

He'd been an army surgeon, he reminded himself. He'd done more, and for longer.

"How did–" Molly started, making an aborted gesture to the body on the stretcher. "How do you know–"

"What she looks like naked?" John sighed. "Same way Sherlock did. That's how she introduced herself to us. She wasn't long on modesty. And she wanted to throw us off. Or him, I suppose."

"Did it– did it work?"

"Not as well as she'd have liked," John said, bracing himself on the edge of the stretcher, ignoring the body to fix his gaze on Molly. "He was never going to be interested. Not more than professionally. Or intellectually. Same thing, with Sherlock."

Molly glanced down at Adler's face for a long moment, then nodded.

"I was jealous of the wrong person," she said.

"Yeah," John agreed. "Me too." He managed a smile, almost feeling it. "You're not the only one who got the wrong idea."

Molly's lips twitched and John caught a momentary gleam in her brown eyes.

"He must have called you an idiot for that," she said.

"He made a whole speech," John replied, with a glimmer of genuine humour.

"He would do," Molly said, her smile vanishing as she glanced up. John looked over his shoulder to see Mycroft stopping in the doorway, gaze skimming the naked body on the gurney before he sighed and rolled his eyes.

John took a moment of petty revenge, leaving the body exposed briefly before tossing the sheet back over it, covering it back up with Molly's help.

"Doctor Hooper, if you don't mind, I need to speak with Doctor Watson alone," Mycroft said. Molly gave John a quick look, then hurried out when he nodded despite his better judgment.

He wasn't entirely sure he should be alone in a room with Mycroft right now, and not because he was worried about his own safety.

He curled his hands around the handles of the gurney, glad that the body was covered again. Something about the anonymity of the white sheet kept the person under it from being too distracting.

"Doctor Watson–"

"Shut up," John said, taking another deep breath, wondering how much longer he could hold on. "Just shut up."

He tried to order his thoughts, tried to find some level headedness that would keep him from ripping the whole conversation to shreds. He needed information that Mycroft had. _Sherlock_ needed that information.

He could stay focused, for that.

"Is this her, Mycroft? Is it _really_ her?"

Mycroft gave him a long look, one that cut right through him. John let it, knowing he didn't have any defenses left worth mustering.

"We believe so."

"You believe so– you _believe_ so? That's not– that's not bloody good enough, Mycroft! You were so sure the last two times–"

"Which is why we're being more cautious this time. And the evidence–"

"What evidence?" John snapped. "She faked the body the first time, and she faked the DNA the second time!"

"And now we have both," Mycroft replied, far too calm from John's liking, but with a trace of irritation that gave John a perverse satisfaction. "We're still processing the DNA, but the situation makes it seem more likely. No, please," he said, holding up a hand when John drew a breath to interrupt. " _She_ set it up both previous times. All of the evidence the police have – some of which you provided – indicates this wasn't her idea. I'm certain that, having never met Amélie Lasselle, Ms Adler made the unfortunate, and rather terminal, mistake of underestimating her."

"The police," John repeated, covering his eyes with one hand. "Of course you've bloody talked to them."

"There are national security issues here, John. And my brother is lying unconscious in intensive care."

"And because of that, he won't see this!" John snapped, gesturing at the stretcher. "I need to _know_ , Mycroft! Who else do you think he's going to bloody believe about this? I don't even know if he'll believe me! This needs to be rock solid–"

"He will believe himself," Mycroft interjected. "DI Hassard shared the recording with me as well."

"This isn't good enough," John said, voice verging on a snarl.

"There isn't much more–"

"I don't mean this, Mycroft!" John shouted, patience unravelling. "I don't mean Adler's body, if this is really her, which it _actually_ probably is this time! I mean all of this!" He gestured to the room, then jabbed a finger at Mycroft. "Mary is still bloody _out there_ and Sherlock's in the ICU because _she put him there_! You heard the bloody recording, Mycroft! You know it was her and you had _months_ when she was right under your nose, pretending to date my own damn sister and you didn't get it! And now Sherlock's got a severe concussion and we still don't have her!"

"John–"

"No!" John snarled, pushing himself away from the gurney, making a sharp, threatening gesture that made Mycroft draw back slightly, fuelling John's anger. "No, Mycroft, don't even try because there's no talking your way out of this one! He's your goddamn brother and she put him in ICU– they _both_ did, and _I'm_ going to have to explain to Sherlock that Adler's dead – really this time, and hope he fucking believes it and that we're right – _and_ that Mary's still out there! If he wakes up! So don't– be all posh at me right now! Do your bloody job and fix this!"

He ran out of steam so suddenly it made him sag; he gripped the edge of the stretcher for good measure and shot Mycroft a glare that warned against pushing him further. Mycroft held his gaze for a long moment, then drew a breath to reply, an annoyed look flickering across his features when a knock at the door interrupted them.

Molly pushed the door open, looking between both of them hesitantly but with an expression that told John she wasn't going to back down.

"Sorry, John," she said, gaze flickering back to him. "Sherlock's neurologist just called down. She'd like to see you."


	18. Chapter 18

John forced himself not to run, ignoring the panicked urgency that made his muscles twitch. Molly had relayed the neurologist's reassurance that nothing was wrong, she only wanted to update him, but John couldn't shake the feeling that the update might be something serious.

Even if it didn't seem that way now. Maybe something that appeared innocuous that led to a critical problem down the line.

He'd seen that enough times in Afghanistan. If there were even slight irregularities on the PET scan, or if Sherlock's wound got infected…

_Stop it_ , he told himself firmly, hoping like hell Mycroft wasn't picking up on his tension. It wasn't helping to have Sherlock's brother following like a tall, silent shadow.

John would have preferred to do this alone, but he had no good reason for turning Mycroft away.

Amanda was still in the ICU when they arrived, looking cheery despite the fatigue. Something inside of John loosened at her relaxed demeanour; if there had been something wrong – even just a little bit wrong – she wouldn't have given him that reassuring smile.

"Oh good, you're both here," the neurologist said without preamble. John hoped the lack of social niceties annoyed Mycroft. "I'm happy with both of Sherlock's scans and he's out of immediate danger, so I think it's time to move him somewhere quieter. We have a private room at your request, Mr. Holmes, but I would advise against transferring him to another hospital."

"What?" John asked, glaring back at Mycroft. "He stays here."

"A private hospital would–"

"He stays here," John repeated. "End of story."

He had Sherlock's power of attorney, and he knew Mycroft was well aware of that. The elder Holmes brother glowered but relented. A bit too readily for John's taste, but he hoped that was only because Mycroft knew better than to start an argument in an ICU ward rather than because he had secret plans to transfer Sherlock somewhere else.

"I'll have the paperwork put through and we'll get him ready to go," she promised before leaving them alone, four adults crowded into a tiny, curtained-off area.

"Amanda, you look shattered," John said bluntly. She gave him a wry look but nodded.

"If you're staying, them I'm clocking out," she replied.

"I'll arrange a car," Mycroft said. Amanda looked like she'd refuse for a moment, then shrugged and nodded.

"Are you going to Harry's?" John asked when Mycroft had stepped outside to make his calls. Amanda nodded, raking her fingers through her hair, dishevelling it slightly.

"Yeah. I'll make sure she's okay. And it'll be nice to have someone cook for me. I'm dead on my feet."

"You don't look it. Not that bad anyway,"

"Thanks," she said dryly, making John turn red at the unintended slight. "That's what a decade and change on the force will do to a person. I'll text you when I get to Harry's, okay? Let me know if anything changes, if he wakes up."

"I will," John promised, bidding her good bye as she exchanged places with Mycroft. Of the two of them, he'd have picked Amanda to stay, but didn't have much choice.

Sherlock stirred as the orderlies were settling him into the private room, scowling as he opened his eyes. John positioned himself to be the first thing the detective saw; he didn't want to add to Sherlock's stress by putting Mycroft front and center. Sherlock's gaze was still glassy but more focused, which would have relieved John if Sherlock hadn't immediately tried to disentangle himself from the IV line and the heart rate monitor attached to his middle finger.

"No, no," John said, using his best reassuring doctor's tone, taking Sherlock's hands, holding them firmly but gently against the detective's resistance.

"Get it off," Sherlock muttered, voice slurred, flexing his fingers around John's.

"It has to stay on for a bit. Just a bit longer, okay?"

"No," Sherlock mumbled but relented, casting an annoyed glare at one of the orderlies, who held up his hands placatingly.

"All done," the orderly said.

"Piss off," Sherlock muttered, tugging his hands from John's to pull the sheet up, trying to cover himself completely. John grasped the blanket, easing it down as a nurse came in, taking the orderlies' places.

"Hello, Mr. Holmes," she said pleasantly, apparently unfazed by Sherlock's glare. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine," Sherlock answered, earning a raised eyebrow from the nurse and a repressed sigh from John. The detective, thankfully, hadn't seemed to notice Mycroft yet – or he was ignoring him – and Sherlock's brother had wisely taken up a seat on the other side of the room, watching silently.

"I'm sure," the nurse replied. "I'm going to ask you some questions. Can you tell me your name?"

"Yes," Sherlock replied. She waited, then gave her head a little shake.

"I need you to tell it to me."

"Sherlock Holmes," he said obediently, but with more than a touch of petulance.

"Your full name, please."

"Sherlock William Scott Holmes."

"Good. And your address?"

"Baker Street," he muttered in reply, then sighed when John squeezed his hand. "221B Baker Street."

"And the current prime minister?"

Sherlock's expression shifted from irritation to sudden panic and he glanced at John, who sighed, shaking his head.

"He won't know that anyway. What's the symbol and atomic mass for oxygen?"

Sherlock stared at him, then shot John another glower.

"O. Two. No. Sixteen."

"Good," John replied, and Sherlock relaxed slightly, glancing around the room, confusion suddenly replacing the annoyance. He sat partway up, registered Mycroft's presence, and lay back down quickly, meeting John's eyes with more than a touch of panic.

"It's okay," John said. Sherlock swallowed hard, clutching the blanket, gaze skittering back to his brother, who had pushed himself to his feet and was watching carefully. To Sherlock, who had grown up in his brother's shadow, it probably felt like Mycroft was hovering menacingly, and something clicked for John about the whole situation.

"You got hit on the head," he said, stroking the backs of his fingers across the exposed skin on Sherlock's forehead before rubbing a thumb soothingly over Sherlock's cheek. He didn't care how intimate the action was; he wanted Sherlock to focus on him rather than on Mycroft. "That's why you're in the hospital. You haven't done anything wrong, all right?"

Sherlock nodded, eyes still wide, and John squeezed his hand again.

"I promise. No drugs."

Sherlock nodded again, more slowly, glancing back at Mycroft before meeting John's gaze.

"Okay," he whispered.

"You need to answer the nurse's questions, all right? It will help them take care of you."

Sherlock's hand tightened hard around John's and he swallowed as if steeling himself. John could see him struggling now and glanced quickly at the nurse, who had seen the same thing.

"I'm going to give you three things to remember, then you can sleep again," she said. "It's all right if you don't remember them right away. Five flowers, red pencils, and blue pens. Can you repeat that back to me?"

Sherlock moved his lips silently, glanced at John, and shook his head.

"No," he whispered.

"That's all right," the nurse said despite the sinking feeling in John's stomach. "We'll work on it. In the meantime, get some rest."

John helped Sherlock get comfortable again and fed him a couple of more ice chips before the detective's eyes dropped shut, his body relaxing against the mattress. John let out a slow breath, the momentary relief dissipating when Sherlock screwed up his features, forcing his eyes back open.

"What happened?" he murmured, reaching blindly for John's hand. John took it, squeezing gently.

"You were hit in the head. You'll be all right."

"When?"

"On a case," John said, unsurprised but still somehow disappointed that Sherlock didn't remember.

"I thought we were in Paris," Sherlock muttered.

"No, not for a few days now," John replied. "Go to sleep, it will help."

Sherlock nodded but fidgeted, pulling at his IV line.

"Take this off," he said, voice slurred with fatigue.

"We can't right now, but we will soon. Just sleep. All right?"

"Fine," Sherlock muttered, shuffling down a bit, eyes dropping shut again. John rubbed his thumb over Sherlock's knuckles, keeping up the reassuring touch until Sherlock's breathing had evened out again. He rubbed a hand over his face, turning to Mycroft, who had cleared his throat pointedly.

"Your diagnosis?" Mycroft asked.

"I'm not a neurologist," John replied with a harsh sigh.

"Speaking as a medical professional who knows Sherlock intimately."

"It's good that he's coherent," John replied shortly. "Less good that he's confused and doesn't remember much. It's too early to tell much, Mycroft. We just have to wait and see."

It didn't sit well with him, but he could tell it was less pleasant for Mycroft, who was used to things happening when he wanted them to happen.

"I trust you have no objection to our parents returning," Mycroft said. John swallowed said objections – they weren't really about Sherlock's parents so much as wanting no one else in the room – and nodded.

"Fine," he replied.

* * *

The light came and went, irritating patches of brightness that were always so full of sound, of voices yammering his name and making demands on him, wanting to know something about pencils and flowers, which was clearly nonsense because those two things did not go together.

It was easier to slip back into the darkness, but even that became chaotic – he was sure it hadn't always been, that there had been nothing there before, where now there was an inexplicable image of black liquid on a floor, or on a wall. There was a pattern to the surface, or a texture, and he could feel it sometimes, like the brush of a feather on his fingertips, the lines and curls of the wallpaper in Baker Street, or cool concrete, smooth and rough at the same time. The two surface didn't go together but when he tried to unravel it, other senses betrayed him, his concentration broken by the brush of a breath against his ear, the smell of smoke. He tried to get the smell off of himself, hampered every single time by John, who wouldn't let him do anything, who insisted the smell – no the IV tubes – why IV tubes? – had to stay on and that he should just rest.

He was tired of resting, he wanted to rest less, he was _restless_ but his body obeyed John's instructions far more readily than it obeyed his own mind, which would have been infuriating except that he seemed to have drifted into a family reunion: Mummy, his father, Mycroft, John.

Surely they wouldn't do that here, in this white room? It was so boring – but the whole situation was boring, overburdened with some inane story about a lost lottery ticket and a misplaced pair of reading glasses. Sherlock stared toward the window, trying to see the Parisian skyline, and gave up when John blocked the view. John was talking and Sherlock cared, he really did, but he didn't understand why John looked different – dressed differently than he had just been and why were all these people in their hotel room, making John change out of the soft hotel bathrobe into something so _boring_?

He nodded to whatever John said, something about pencils and flowers – but _why_? – and closed his eyes.

When he opened them, John had changed again.

Into Mycroft.

Now that really _was_ impressive.

But problematic.

Sherlock didn't want to live with his brother. That would be irritating and tedious all at the same time. Annoyed _and_ bored – the worst possible combination. And Mycroft would insist on keeping things tidier. Hire a cleaner, have someone else in the flat to do the cooking. Always be watching over Sherlock's shoulder. Do this, do that. Mummy would be upset. According to him, Mummy was upset all the time. Sherlock found that suspicious. Surely no one could be disappointed that often, even in him.

Why had John had to change? It seemed unnecessary. He liked John the way he was. Now he had no short friend. Would they take away his coat, too? Then he wouldn't look as tall. And the hat. They'd make him wear the hat. Was he wearing it now? He hoped not. He'd need all new clothes. Like John's, only better. Except Mycroft-John _was_ well dressed and that was good. But not a jumper, no. A suit. Sherlock would miss the jumpers. They were so John. He wore suits and now Mycroft-John wore suits.

He didn't want John stealing his suits.

"Try to stay awake this time, at least for a few minutes," John said and Mycroft didn't move his lips.

_Fascinating_.

When had John learned to do that? Sherlock had never seen him practice, he was sure. Was it meant to be a surprise?

But then there was John _and_ Mycroft, which meant John hadn't changed into Mycroft, which was very good news.

Sherlock smiled, and closed his eyes.

* * *

The hours blurred into one another, broken up only by the snatches of time in which Sherlock was awake. He was still disoriented, asking repeatedly what had happened, convinced they were in Paris and confused about Mycroft and his parents' presence, but John made himself take heart that at least Sherlock was coherent when he was awake. He seemed put off by the memory task he'd been given, complaining about the lack of logic behind it, and some small part of John felt relieved about that – it was familiar Sherlock petulance.

Eventually, Sherlock's family left, his parents promising to come back first thing in the morning. John nodded and thanked them dutifully, sinking into a chair with a sigh when he was left alone in the room with a sleeping Sherlock. The prospect of another night spent sleeping in a chair was alleviated when the nurses brought him a camp bed – it wasn't the most comfortable thing he'd ever slept on, but far from the worst, and certainly better than the chair.

He wished he'd thought to bring a change of clothes – not to mention soap and deodorant – but he could text Harry the next morning. In the meantime, John stripped down to his t-shirt and boxers, settling onto the cot and listening to Sherlock's steady breathing.

John woke up the few times Sherlock did, hauling himself up with a repressed groan each time to make sure Sherlock didn't panic or pull out his IV line. When pressed, Sherlock muttered that it didn't hurt, but John had the nurse check it anyway. It wasn't entirely surprising that Sherlock didn't like it – he'd never suffered medical care easily and there were, John suspected, some memories in there of drugs or rehab.

Morning brought no real change for Sherlock, so John showered in the tiny bathroom, making do with the hospital-issue soap and wishing he had a razor. Reluctantly, he pulled his clothes back on and sent Harry a quick text asking her to bring some fresh clothes and toiletries from the flat, and, in a moment of inspiration, a few things for Sherlock.

By some miracle of bureaucracy – or perhaps a kind-hearted nurse – Sherlock was issued breakfast, which John ate without any remorse. Even if Sherlock had been awake, after a serious concussion the food probably wouldn't have stayed down. John was more than happy to take it, even if it was bland and uninspired.

He pulled out of his phone and caught up on the news, astonished at everything that had happened in just over a day. The fire had been put out quickly and there were no fatalities – at least, no reported fatalities. It didn't escape his notice that no mention was made of Irene Adler's death. But the reports did buoy him slightly; it probably meant the fake Bridget had escaped. He wanted her caught – and wondered if she had been – but wouldn't wish her dead.

Alexandre was all over the news, of course – John wasn't sure why he was so surprised but it took him aback to see the pictures: grainy shots of Alexandre being led into Scotland Yard, more polished photos from a press conference late yesterday. John clicked the video link, watching Alexandre, flanked by his wife and daughter, thank the Metropolitan Police, Sherlock, and John himself for rescuing him. John felt a wry stab of humour at that – it had been Mary who'd freed Alexandre, and Alexandre who had dragged Sherlock to safety.

A knock on the door distracted him and John stood, wincing slightly at the stiffness in his muscles. He was expecting Harry, or Mycroft and Sherlock's parents, but a police escort consisting of Lestrade and Amanda, as well as two uniformed officers, flanking Alexandre and his family caught John up short.

He was suddenly aware of how rumpled he was, with a day's growth of stubble and in somewhat stale clothing, but Alexandre didn't seem to care at all, pulling him into a fierce hug. Stunned, John tried to return it, but by the time his mind had caught up, Juliette had swooped in to give him a kiss on either cheek and a one-armed hug, laughing and thanking him. He managed a "you're welcome", still off-balance, aware that Alexandre was glancing past him into the room.

"'ow is 'e?" Alexandre asked.

"He's all right," John said, "or as good as he can be. He doesn't remember much right now, when he's awake. He's, um– he wouldn't made it out without you. So thank you."

Alexandre gave him a wry look, then said something in rapid French to his wife. From Amanda's raised eyebrow, he knew she'd understood whatever Alexandre had said well enough to lead Juliette and Lestrade away, ordering the uniformed officers to stand guard outside the door.

John let Alexandre into the room, where the Frenchman glanced at Sherlock's sleeping form before turning his attention back to John.

"They explained everything to me – I'm sorry I got you – both of you – caught up in all of this."

The apology took John by surprised, and he shook his head, holding up a hand.

"I think it's the other way around," he said. "We were already involved when we came to Paris. This is… this is what Sherlock does. You shouldn't have been dragged into it."

"No one should 'ave, I think. It doesn't make much sense."

"No," John sighed, rubbing a hand over his face, feeling a sharper stab of resentment at Mary and Adler and all of their deceptions and games. He took a deep breath, wrestling the familiar rage back under control. Hating Adler was a waste of time now, but knowing that didn't stop the fury.

She was half the reason Sherlock was lying in the hospital, oblivious to the world happening around him.

"May I come back when he's doing better?" Alexandre asked. "I'd like to say thank you, properly."

"Yeah. Yeah, of course. Just– be careful, yeah?"

"I will be," Alexandre said, expression serious and tone sombre. John shook his hand, feeling slightly guilty that he couldn't muster much energy to worry about how this would affect Alexandre, what he'd think and do now after such an ordeal.

"Thank you, John. Really. And thank 'im for me when 'e wakes up."

"I will," John promised. Alexandre gave him a half smile with no real humour in it, and paused to take one of Sherlock's hands, squeezing it tightly, before bidding John good-bye and leaving with the police escort. John watched him walk down the corridor, joined by his wife, Lestrade and Amanda.

He waved the DIs away, aware he didn't have much time left on his own, and settled in to wait for Harry to drop by and for Sherlock's family to descend on the tiny hospital room once more.


	19. Chapter 19

Sherlock had been better throughout the day, awake more and asking what had happened less frequently. A small part of John wondered if Sherlock had just given up asking, but it wasn't like the detective to stop harping on something he didn't understand.

He took a brief walk outside while Sherlock was asleep, but stayed in the room otherwise – Sherlock did better when he was awake if John was there, less prone to confusion and sulking. He tolerated his family's presence remarkably well, but with some uncertainty, as if he were constantly waiting to be scolded.

It bothered John – a lot – that Sherlock hadn't seemed to make the connection between his concussion and his family's visit. If anything, John thought Sherlock was still secretly concerned he was in rehab.

When Sherlock's parents and Mycroft left for the day, John let out a silent sigh of relief, drawing the privacy curtain to block the view of anyone glancing in through the door's small window. He sat back down next to the bed, aware of a sharp, grey-eyed gaze on him. _That_ was familiar, although it wasn't as focused as John was used to, and definitely not as insightful.

Sherlock, John was well aware, had been taking his cues from John all day.

 _Well, there are worse things_ , he thought, keeping a wry smirk to himself.

"Do you remember what happened?" John asked.

"No," Sherlock said bluntly, then cut John off when the doctor opened his mouth to explain. "Although I do remember you telling me I sustained a concussion on a case."

"Good," John sighed. "That's good. Do you remember the memory prompt the nurse gave you?"

They'd been working on that all day and to no avail – Sherlock could remember the combination of flowers and pens, but not the whole thing, and the task seemed to aggravate him.

"I remember it's idiotic," Sherlock snapped. John heaved a sigh, shaking his head.

"It helps track your progress, Sherlock."

"I hardly need some inane task to aid my memory, John. It does nothing but illustrate some talent for rote memorization."

"Yes, that's the point," John said. Sherlock cast him a glare, slouching down in the bed and folding his arms.

"It's a stupid point," he muttered, refusing to meet John's gaze, which the doctor understood as defeat. As long as Sherlock could claim it was pointless, he wouldn't have to admit the simple task was eluding him.

"All right," John relented. It wasn't worth pushing the point, not yet. And Sherlock had had a long day. Part of John wanted to take him back to Baker Street immediately, where he had some control over who came and went – but that meant putting Sherlock back in his work environment and John had no desire to find out what kind of disaster the detective might cause with volatile chemicals and memory problems.

"Let's get you into the bath, shall we?" he asked. Sherlock scowled but gave a curt nod. John called the nurse to unhook Sherlock from the machines and the IV, then helped his partner to his feet. Sherlock deigned to suffer John's help getting into the tiny bathroom, casting an angry glare at John as if the small bathtub was somehow his fault.

He'd had Harry bring some of Sherlock's things as well and was glad for it – he couldn't wash Sherlock's hair, not with the bandages still on, but he could shave him and bundle him into his own pyjamas after drying him off.

It was a relief to throw open the bathroom door, letting the steam that had been trapped in the tiny space begin to dissipate. John had been fighting it the whole time, but the sudden rush of cooler air from the main room made him cough, gripping the porcelain sink until he managed to get himself under control. He took a few slow, deep breaths, surprised to feel something plastic pressed against the back of his hand.

John took the cup instinctively, glancing up at Sherlock, who was watching him sharply, grey eyes still ringed by black bruises.

"It won't help the actual smoke damage, but it may have some effect on your throat. Aggravating the rest of your respiratory system isn't beneficial."

"How did you–" John started, then paused to take a drink of the water when another coughing fit threatened.

"Know about the smoke damage to your lungs?" Sherlock asked, scowling slightly when John nodded and gesturing to the main room. John followed Sherlock out, choosing to ignore the relief that flooded Sherlock's features when he eased himself onto the bed.

"Obvious, really," Sherlock said. "You've been clearing your throat all day – it might have been an indication of nervousness at having my family here, only you didn't stop doing it after they left. If you were ill, with a cold or something more serious, the hospital wouldn't permit you to visit. Being a doctor, you're inclined to be more cavalier with your health, but you wouldn't compromise mine – although you _might_ compromise the safety of other patients if forced to choose between them and me."

"I wouldn't–" John started.

"You would," Sherlock interjected blithely, as if John risking an entire hospital's worth of patients wasn't an issue. It bothered John that Sherlock was right – but it shouldn't really surprise him, he thought. He'd shot someone to save Sherlock after knowing the detective for a single day.

"Mycroft wouldn't allow you to be so irresponsible, however, and he wouldn't have missed the signs, which means he's aware of whatever caused your distress. I was injured on a case; it stands to reason that you might have suffered something as well, and you never specified my concussion was the only incident that took place. A fire would explain both your coughing – and presumably my lack of coughing, assuming I was unconscious or close to and that you were at least in part responsible for rescuing me. You would have been breathing faster and more deeply when exerting yourself. It also explains my recurring dreams about smoke."

John froze, mind stuttering for a moment before catching up, and he put his cup aside, crossing the room in two long strides to stand right in front of Sherlock.

"What?" he demanded. "You dreamt about the fire? You remember that?"

"I smelled smoke, John," Sherlock said. "Or dreamt I did."

"What else?" John pressed. "Anything else?"

Sherlock sighed, looking away, irritation flickering over his pale features.

"Images only. Some sensations. Nothing that makes sense. Maybe some from – wherever we were. I don't know. You haven't told me yet."

John sighed, dropping his head into one hand and pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I have, actually," he said. "Not everything, but some."

The admission sat poorly with Sherlock, who refused to meet his gaze, expression stormy.

"Scent is the strongest sense associated with memory," Sherlock pointed out, voice cool.

"Yeah," John said, reluctantly letting go to the hopes the detective's admission had sparked. He shouldn't have expected that much, and for Sherlock even to remember the smell of the smoke was remarkable. He should hold onto that, he told himself.

Sherlock's memory couldn't be that badly damaged if he remembered the fire.

And his observation skills were alive and well – it was the first real example of that John had seen since Sherlock had woken up. Memories could be relearned, but the core of Sherlock was still there.

"Oh," John said, suddenly remembering something himself. "Speaking of…"

He rummaged through the bag of supplies Harry had brought until he found what he was looking for. John pulled out the chocolate-coloured dressing gown, giving it a shake and holding it up for Sherlock to see.

"Remember this?"

The ghost of a smile touched the edges of Sherlock's lips and he sat up on the hospital bed, gesturing for John to bring the dressing gown over. John helped him into it, and Sherlock pressed the silk against his nose, inhaling deeply.

He paused, sniffed again, then looked up, giving John a puzzled look before tears well up in his eyes, streaking down his cheeks. Sherlock looked startled, reaching up with a shaking hand to touch his face, the tremors spreading up his arms to his shoulders.

"Hey, hey," John said, pulling Sherlock into a tight hug, startled by the suddenness and severity of the shaking. Sherlock clutched at his back, face pressed into John's chest, obviously trying to regulate his breathing.

"It's okay," John said. "It's an after-effect of the concussion. It's okay."

It had probably been a bad idea to give Sherlock the dressing gown – Sherlock had only worn it the one time, in Paris, so it would still smell the same, triggering what John could privately admit were some intense memories.

It still surprised him, even after all this time, how much emotion Sherlock tied to John. He had never really expected it – but then again, there were days when he suspected he was the only one who hadn't.

"It's all right," John murmured, rubbing soothing circles on Sherlock's back. Sherlock managed a nod, but that didn't stop the shuddering or the tears he was trying to keep quiet. John kept up the whispered reassurances until the episode had passed, leaving Sherlock pale and rung out, bruised eyes ringed with red.

When John tried to help Sherlock out of the dressing gown, the detective clutched it stubbornly, shaking his head. John relented immediately – there was no sense fighting Sherlock; it wouldn't get either of them anywhere. He called the nurse in instead, who hooked Sherlock back up to the IV and the monitors while John got him fully settled on the bed.

By the time the nurse had left and John had drawn the privacy curtain again behind her, Sherlock was fast asleep. With a quiet sigh, John tucked the blankets more carefully around his sleeping partner, trying not to be bothered by the way the black eyes made Sherlock's features look sunken and too thin.

He brushed his teeth, closing the bathroom door when another coughing fit – this one mercifully shorter – overcame him, then changed into his pyjamas and crawled into the low camp bed. John lay awake, counting Sherlock's slow breathing until he could match his own to it, and fell asleep.

* * *

He awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of his murmured name, sitting up before being fully conscious, focusing on Sherlock.

The detective was watching him across the room, his gaze visible in the light from the machines and that bled in from the hallway despite the closed curtain.

"Yeah," John said, pushing himself to his feet and padding across the room, vainly trying to shake the fatigue that clung to the edges of his mind. "What do you need?"

"Water," Sherlock replied. John filled a cup for each of them, sitting down next to the bed, keeping an eye on his partner as Sherlock sipped his drink carefully.

The detective gazed into his cup, refusing to meet John's gaze.

"Have you already told me who did this?" he muttered, and John didn't have to be an observational genius to hear the trepidation in that question.

Sherlock was, he realized, just as terrified of the memory loss as John was.

"No," John said, and Sherlock let out a deep breath, shoulders relaxing visibly.

"Who was it?" he asked, turning his gaze to meet John's. "Who did this?"

"Mary," John said bluntly. Surprise flickered across Sherlock's features, and John wondered how many people he'd considered and rejected before asking the question.

"Why?" Sherlock asked.

"Do you remember Alexandre Georges? The French author we met in Paris?"

Sherlock looked hesitant, searching for a memory, so John pulled up a photo – not one from the recent news, no need to complicate things more – and passed his phone to his partner. Sherlock studied it for a moment, then nodded uncertainly.

"He looks… familiar," Sherlock said. John tried not to let the admission bother him, but Sherlock rarely made that kind of connection. Either he would have recognized Alexandre immediately or have deleted him completely.

"Well, it turns out he's Mary's half-brother."

" _What_?"

John sighed, filling his cup again, more for something to do than out of actual necessity. He ran a thumb along the rim, wondering how to explain – most of this would be new territory since Sherlock had woken up, although he'd mentioned a few times that Sherlock had been injured in an incident on a construction site during a case.

He explained as best he could without going into too much detail: someone had made the link between Mary and Alexandre, neither of whom had known about the other up until now, and had tried to use Alexandre to get to her.

"Who?" Sherlock demanded.

"We don't really know yet," John lied baldly, hoping like hell Sherlock wouldn't see through it. "But you were able to track down his location, partly because the construction site was a building Mary had invested in."

That was true enough without being entirely accurate – he was probably in for it when he had to tell Sherlock the whole truth, but he didn't care. Two in the morning in a hospital room was neither the time nor the place to go into Irene Adler's involvement.

"Why would Mary have done this then?" Sherlock asked.

"Good bloody question," John muttered in response. He knew the answer – she wanted Sherlock out of the way to deal with Adler herself – but there were so many better ways to have done it. Drugging him would have worked just as well.

He remembered what she'd told Sherlock about Sebastian Moran, about taking care of a problem herself. Sherlock had been in her way, however briefly, and she'd removed him.

It probably seemed like simple arithmetic to her.

But she wasn't the one dealing with the very messy, very human aftermath.

"But you saved him. Alexandre. You're the reason we found him." John left out the details of Mary having freed her half-brother and instructed him on where to find Sherlock – he could go into that later and it didn't change the fact that without Sherlock, Mary wouldn't have known where Alexandre was.

"Obviously," Sherlock replied dryly, and John's lips quirked into a half smile.

"And you will be fine," John said, half to convince himself, half to convince Sherlock.

Sherlock said nothing to that, but passed his cup back to John and shuffled down under the blankets, deliberately closing his eyes. John sighed, put the cups aside, and leaned over to press a light kiss against the exposed skin of his partner's forehead. Sherlock tensed briefly but didn't pull away, and John let him go, padding back to his own narrow bed in the hopes of finding a bit more sleep.

* * *

The days began to blur into one another, a familiar and tiring pattern of visits from Sherlock's family, of petulant sulks and barely restrained frustration when they were left alone. The memory task continued to elude him – he'd gotten it right once or twice, but only with very obvious effort, and although John didn't have to explain more than once that Mary was responsible for Sherlock's concussion, he had to clarify the details of Alexandre's involvement several times.

The neurologist didn't seem overly concerned, which should have been a relief but only annoyed John. For anyone else, the fragmented recollections and the memory loss might have been normal, but Sherlock wasn't just anyone else.

The detective _was_ his mind, and John knew that better than anyone else, except maybe Sherlock himself.

He tried to stay patient but it was hard in the face of Sherlock's frustration, of the slow pace of his recovery. More than once, John had to reassure his partner that he wasn't in the hospital for drugs, but at least John could content himself with the fact that Sherlock only thought that when he woke up, before his brain had a chance to catch up with the facts.

But even that felt false – Sherlock was normally never disoriented when he woke up, as if the part of his brain that processed and analyzed information never completely shut off.

If Mary had managed to disable that… the need to swallow that rage was becoming familiar to John, just as much as Sherlock's aggravation was.

He stayed with Sherlock as much as possible, the occasional break feeling more like a burden than a respite. When John wasn't in the hospital room, he worried about Sherlock constantly, and despised leaving the detective alone, even for a few minutes. This wasn't generally a problem, because Sherlock usually had some visitors – which was wearing both of them down – but John did sometimes have to leave him alone in the evenings to grab a quick meal in the hospital's cafeteria.

The food was becoming less and less appetizing each time he ate there, and John was already counting down the days until he could take Sherlock home and order takeaway from all their favourite places.

The detective had no release date yet – the neurologist was being cautious, probably partly at Mycroft's request. John resented and appreciated that in equal parts, and vacillating between the two was tiring him out even more.

 _Soon_ , he promised himself for the umpteenth time as he stepped out of the lift onto Sherlock's floor. He hadn't been home since Lestrade had taken him back to Baker Street the second day of Sherlock's hospital stay; he'd owe Harry and Amanda, who had been bringing things for him and Sherlock and keeping an eye on the flat, a big favour when this was all done and dusted, but didn't have time to worry much about that now.

He knocked softly on the door, so as not to startle Sherlock if his partner was just drifting off or waking up, and stepped past the curtain to find an empty room.

John froze, heart skipping a beat before his adrenaline spiked, sending his pulse skyrocketing. He crossed the room in two long strides, yanking the bathroom door open, hoping against hope that Sherlock's affronted expression would greet him, but it was as empty as the rest of the room.

He shoved the curtain aside again, striding into the hallway, torn between scouring the hospital himself right now or alerting the duty nurse and waiting, impatiently, for the hospital's security to do something.

He was saved from the decision when Sherlock emerged from the lift, supported by Molly Hooper, his irritated expression bordering on dangerous.

"Where the hell did you go?" John hissed, striding toward them. Sherlock glared at him and Molly shook her head.

"He came down to visit me," she replied. "But don't ask me how he got there, because he doesn't remember."

"I went down," Sherlock said coolly. "It's not that difficult."

"You can't just bloody leave, Sherlock!" John snapped, fighting to keep his voice low – he didn't want to attract the nurse's attention or disturb anyone else who might complain and get them noticed.

"I didn't leave," Sherlock muttered in a tone that told John he knew all too well he'd bent the rules beyond reasonable limits but wasn't willing to cop to it. "I was still in the hospital."

"You can't leave your _room_ ," John sighed. "Not without telling someone!"

"Am I a prisoner?" Sherlock snapped as Molly helped him back into the room. John closed the door behind them, taking care not to slam it despite the urge to do so.

"No, you're an injured man who's under potential threat from an international criminal!"

"If Mary wanted me dead, I would be," Sherlock replied with infuriating reasonableness given the situation. "I wanted a change of scenery. And now I want to know who _is_ dead."

"What?" John and Molly asked at the same time.

"There's someone in the morgue I'm not meant to know about," Sherlock replied bluntly. "Although Molly is often nervous around me, she's generally not so focused about it."

"Sherlock!" John admonished, casting an apologetic glance at Molly, who looked embarrassed. It was true, but he wished Sherlock had learned enough tact not to say it.

Or any tact at all.

"You kept glancing towards the cool storage without trying to be obvious about it," Sherlock said, redirecting his comments to Molly. "You were clearly agitated by my presence there, and not simply because you were unhappy that I'd come down on my own, despite your protests otherwise. You didn't want me to be there because there's something you don't want me to see." He turned to John, grey eyes icy. "I've been here a week, Molly's been up to visit several times. If she's spoken to me, she's spoken to you about me. Whatever she's trying to keep from me, you're well aware of it, and you don't want me to know."

He fixed John with a hard gaze, unwavering and unrelenting.

"Who abducted Alexandre Georges? Who died?"


	20. Chapter 20

“I want to see it.”

“Sherlock–”

“ _John_.”

John sighed, studying his partner’s face. Sherlock was watching him intently, everything about his expression telling John he would go back to the morgue with or without the doctor’s consent.

It was a familiar stubbornness, but not one John welcomed right now.

Seeing Adler’s body wasn’t going to be good for Sherlock, at least in John’s opinion, but he knew his partner well enough to know that in this – unlike most things – Sherlock didn’t give a damn about what John thought.

He wished the recording had been enough. He’d played it for Sherlock, letting the detective listen from the moment it had started, with John calling the police, until they’d managed to haul Sherlock outside and the audio had devolved into a nearly incomprehensible babble of voices and sirens.

Sherlock had listened in impassive silence, barely reacting to the sound of Adler’s voice or Mary’s, somewhat startled by the gunshot – even though John had known to turn the volume down – and more surprised by Alexandre’s voice.

John had explained about that, how Mary had located and freed Alexandre and told him where Sherlock was, aware that he hadn’t done a particularly good job of keeping his tone neutral.

Mary was the reason Sherlock had needed Alexandre’s help in the first place.

She’d left him, half conscious and bleeding from a head wound, in a building burning down around him.

John took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing himself to nod.

“Yeah,” he said, against his better judgment. “Okay.”

He helped Sherlock up, making sure the IV line wouldn’t catch on anything. It was a small mercy that Sherlock was off most of the monitors, save for the heart rate monitors at night. The IV was still necessary – he wasn’t able to drink nearly as much as he needed, and ate even less, so that the sunken look to his cheeks wasn’t just an illusion cast by the black circles around his eyes.

Still, John told himself, Sherlock was stronger with each passing day – strong enough to have made it down to the morgue by himself once already.

Hopefully strong enough for what he wanted to face down there.

John told the duty nurse they were going for a short walk and led Sherlock away, letting the detective hold his arm when there was no one else to see. Molly was waiting for them in the morgue, looking nervous, and as displeased as John felt.

He was grateful she was there, rather than one of the other pathologists, and grateful she’d left them alone in Sherlock’s room so John could explain what had happened. He wondered if she’d called Mycroft, because he couldn’t believe Sherlock’s brother wouldn’t want to know if Sherlock visited, but maybe there were some rules she was willing to bend.

He hoped so – fervently – because the last thing Sherlock needed right now was his brother intruding.

As smart as Mycroft was, he was never smart enough to leave things alone when it came to his baby brother.

“Well?” Sherlock drawled, arching an eyebrow. Molly looked at John, and John could feel Sherlock’s annoyance at that, but he nodded all the same. It helped to think he had some small measure of control over the situation.

“This way,” Molly said, and John caught Sherlock rolling his eyes – of course he knew where to go (although privately John was glad for the evidence of his memory working well enough here). They followed behind her, Sherlock’s gait still much slower than normal, and slightly shuffling.

It felt strange to return, as if he were living his life on a loop – but the hospital in general had that effect. John set his jaw and bore it; there was only one way through this, no matter how much he disliked it.

Molly pulled the body out and gave John a hesitant look before glancing up at Sherlock.

“Just the face,” the detective said stonily, and John didn’t miss the way his hand tightened around the IV pole, knuckles going white, as Molly drew the sheet back. It was a small mercy, John thought, that Molly missed it. By the time she’d straightened again, Sherlock had forced himself to relax, staring impassively down at the corpse.

Impassive except for his eyes. They were blazing, accentuated by the dark circles ringing them, shockingly bright against his pale skin.

John had seen that expression once before. After Wales, when they’d gotten the results of his shoulder x-ray back.

He’d misread it then.

It was harder to misjudge now.

“Do you want me to–” Molly began, gesturing to the door.

“No,” Sherlock said coldly. “I’ve seen enough. John.”

The doctor nodded, giving Molly an apologetic glance. It was hardly abnormal for Sherlock to be so abrupt, but John felt a bit guilty all the same.

“Thanks,” he said, and she nodded silently, busying herself with covering the body back up as John followed Sherlock out of the room.

They went back to the ward in silence – a couple of times, John wondered if he should say something, but even if he’d known what, Sherlock’s expression would have stopped him.

He recognized Sherlock keeping it together with a lot of effort, and didn’t want to be the final straw that snapped his self-control.

It was the rattle of the IV stand that tipped him off; John was in the middle of the familiar act of pulling the privacy curtain closed when he heard metal against metal and turned to Sherlock folding in on himself, one hand closed around the IV stand for support, but succeeding only in dragging it down with him.

John had him in under a second, grimacing at the effort of keeping Sherlock upright and balancing the IV stand carefully enough with his shoulder that he could push it back up, managing to get one foot on it to keep it stable. Once it was steady, John gave it no more thought, hauling Sherlock up right before helping the detective slump onto the bed, alarmed at how badly Sherlock was shaking.

He’d gone ashen, the same white shade as the sheets, what was visible of his forehead suddenly beaded with sweat, his breath coming in shallow gasps. One hand fumbled for John’s, and John took it instinctively, squeezing hard, nodding and wondering how well Sherlock could see him right now.

“Lie down, that’s it, head down, knees up, right, just like that,” he said, recognizing the sudden symptoms for what they were – this wasn’t some pent up emotional reaction, or at least not entirely.

He should have known better, insisted Sherlock use a wheelchair for his second excursion to the morgue. The detective had jumped abruptly from being almost entirely bed-bound to taking two trips up and down the hospital within the span of an hour.

Add to that the little Sherlock had eaten that day, let alone the past week, and it was no wonder he’d gone into shock.

“Breathe, Sherlock, slow deep breaths. With me. All right?” Sherlock managed a nod, and John slowed his breathing, making it exaggerated and audible, nodding encouragingly as Sherlock tried to match it, still shivering. John managed to get him under some blankets, rubbing his hands and arms for increased circulation as he kept a sharp eye on his partner.

Relief trickled in as Sherlock’s breathing began to slow, the panicked look ebbing from his features. John kept up his slow breathing until he was sure Sherlock was out of danger, before he let himself relax very carefully, on alert for any changes.

Sherlock kept hold of John’s hands, grip weaker than it had been, but just as unwilling to let go.

“I want to go home,” he muttered.

“Yeah,” John said. “Okay.”

Sherlock met his gaze, surprise flickering through tired grey eyes, and John nodded, running a thumb over his partner’s knuckles.

“I’ll talk to the neurologist. See what I can do,” he said. _I want to go home, too. I want this to be done._

He wondered if Sherlock caught the thought on his features but didn’t care; he wanted all of this behind them – Irene Adler, Mary, the memory tests, the PET scans, the family visits, the flurry of concerned posts and questions on his blog, the flood of flowers and good wishes from people John thought had never even met them.

He probably couldn’t get away from all of it, not yet.

But at very least, they could walk away from Irene Adler.

He’d be happy to never look back.

He wondered how often Sherlock would.

 _Maybe not as often as you think_ , he told himself, remembering the look in Sherlock’s eyes in the morgue, and in the doctor’s office early that spring.

Anything else Sherlock might have felt for her didn’t outweigh the memory of Wales. It probably never would, John realized, even with her dead.

“I think it’s a bloody brilliant idea,” John said, catching the edge in his voice, unable to dampen it. “Let’s go home.”

* * *

 They kept him there for two more days, but Sherlock saw to it that it was _only_ two more days. He requested a notebook from a bemused John, and wrote out the idiotic memory prompt again and again until he could recite it at will – and did so for any medical professional who came through his door.

It became so entrenched in his mind that he dreamt about it, the words floating on a loop through his mind, accompanied by their images, interspersed with the blue swirls and symbols from the tunnels, which he now knew were related to Alexandre Georges’ latest novel and – by design – to his abduction.

The list of instructions the neurologist gave John was almost as long as Sherlock’s arm, and Sherlock was under very strict orders to listen to John, both as a doctor and as his partner, and to comply with all of the neurologist’s conditions.

It was ridiculously evident that John (and Mycroft, but frankly, who cared about Mycroft) expected Sherlock not to behave himself. If this had only been some physical injury, he would have been inclined to disregard medical advice – doctors were, after all, notoriously overcautious.

But this was his _mind_ , pieces of which still lay in scattered fragments, refusing his attempts to put them back together. John insisted this was normal, but Sherlock wasn’t _normal_. He was a genius. He had honed his mind to perfection, trained his body to listen to it, rather than the other way around.

And now his body was far too much in charge, trapping him in this weakened, encumbered cage, and he couldn’t even turn to the sharpness of his mind as a consolation.

No matter how many times he listened to the recording he’d made – when John was asleep, because the doctor clearly had issues with Sherlock revisiting this information – he couldn’t bring his mind to recall the actual events.

At least he’d been able to order them in his memory, though. He knew step-by-step what had happened, despite that knowledge being second hand.

He’d had the foresight to collect the data for himself, even if he hadn’t anticipated this outcome.

John was adamant that Sherlock’s memory was improving and his observational skills were as sharp as ever – Sherlock still doubted the former but the latter was obvious, and he grew tired of John trying to stop him from reading everyone’s tells and hidden secrets. It gave him something to _do_ during the tedious stay, especially when his parents and Mycroft insisted on imposing themselves on him.

Besides, some of the medical staff enjoyed it, and set little challenges for him.

The day they finally released him, they took his bandages off nearly permanently. The neurologist, after much debate, gave him permission to travel from the hospital to Baker Street without any bandages whatsoever. He would have to wear them – albeit not such a thick helmet – for another week, at which time she warned him she would see how the wound was healing.

They’d let him wash his hair – or rather, a nurse had washed it, which was annoying, because it should have been John, but the sensation when it was finished more than made up for the inconvenience. The nurse had shown John how to do it, and John had paid careful attention, which was good. Sherlock supposed training as an army surgeon didn’t require this particular talent, but John was developing a nurse’s skill set as well.

As useful as that was, it was also somewhat inconvenient, particularly when John banded together with the nurses to insist Sherlock use a wheelchair when being discharged. Apparently, he was not to be trusted to walk long distances on his own – if the ward to the street counted as a long distance – but he acquiesced after only a cursory resistance, because it meant getting out of the blasted hospital and home faster.

Stepping into the house was like a cool breeze on a sweltering day; the world seemed to right itself a bit, tension he hadn’t been aware of and didn’t want seeping away. Once inside, he allowed John to help him up the stairs; there had been no question of walking from the cab to the door on his own. One never knew who was watching (probably Mycroft), and it was bad enough he still had a lighter bandage wrapped around his head and these persistent black eyes.

He wasn’t about to let any more weakness show than necessary.

But the stairs were daunting and he was breathing heavily when they reached their flat, small silver spots dancing around the edges of his vision. John was irritatingly attuned to this, and got Sherlock lying down on the sofa while he puttered around, opening windows and unpacking their accumulated belongings from the hospital. Mercifully, none of the flowers or cards had come home with them. No intrusions from strangers into their lives.

Just the two of them against the rest of the world.

As it should be.

He traced a hand idly over the wallpaper just behind the sofa, mapping its patterns with his fingertips. Linking some of the hazy images from his dreams in the hospital to reality. There was no concrete floor here – that had been at the old power station, one of the few bits of information he had from that night. Not an entirely useless piece of data, but floating free, untethered to anything else.

John (and the neurologist, whom Sherlock supposed must have _some_ degree of expertise) had told him not to force it. Most of the memories from that night wouldn’t come back, John said. Very common for serious concussions. A defensive mechanism in the brain.

 _Fine_ , Sherlock thought, fingers still weaving along the lines and curves of the wallpaper. It made some kind of basic biological sense. He would have conceded that, if it had only been that.

There was no reason for the rest of the memory loss, though. The last PET scan had been nearly normal. _Nearly normal_. He sneered lightly, disdaining the words.

He was not _nearly normal_. No reason his mind should be.

No reason to let him down like this, to drop information unexpectedly and without cause.

It would take time, John said.

It had become John’s favourite refrain.

He didn’t have time for it to take time – life didn’t stop or slow down at his whims, no matter how inconsiderate that was. He had only a finite amount of time (although perhaps not, one never knew). No need to waste it trying to cajole his brain back into working properly.

“Tea?” John asked, poking his head out of the kitchen, and Sherlock remembered _that_. He hadn’t been allowed any in the hospital – a minor form of torture, in his opinion – but at home there appeared to be different rules.

A whole host of different rules.

They settled into a new routine, enforced by John, which Sherlock hated. No experiments. No touching his chemicals or equipment whatsoever, even under strict observation. John pointed out, correctly, that he didn’t know enough to supervise Sherlock properly, so his experiments were off-limits altogether.

He was allowed to take cases if he wasn’t alone – and being alone never happened. If John was at work, Sherlock had an array of minders: Lestrade, Amanda, Harry. His parents and Mycroft were permitted visits, but mercifully not left in charge. John had set some vague and arbitrary rules about when Sherlock wasn’t allowed clients: if he was too tired, too moody, too out-of-sorts.

None of those categories meant anything – he was _bored_ and bored of waiting for his memory to improve, convinced the tiny, incremental progress John insisted he was seeing was only the doctor’s delusional, hopeful thinking.

It was taking too long and Sherlock chafed under it, resentful of the effort and of being so overshadowed and of the fact that John was right, both about the limits the doctor had set and the slow return of his faculties.

It made John unhappy too. It hardly took an observational genius to see that, but it rooted itself somewhere in Sherlock where he couldn’t dislodge it, no matter the rationalizations he applied to it.

 _Of course_ it was difficult for John. They were romantically involved. They had been friends for years before that had developed. John had suffered through nine unpleasant but necessary months thinking Sherlock was dead. John had spent three days in Wales afraid he might never see Sherlock again. John was a trained physician who understand the impact severe concussions could have. John had helped save him from a fire.

All of those things were true, yet somehow knowing them didn’t help diffuse the tension.

So Sherlock tried his best and listened (mostly) even when he didn’t want to.

If he’d had the energy, and a point of comparison, he might have charted the effects trying and listening had in this situation. But there was no control – even another patient with a severe concussion (which he could find; NHS records were not that hard to access, particularly when one had Mycroft as a brother), it wouldn’t be the same. He would need someone at the same intellectual level, which was unlikely – although the idea of bashing Mycroft on the head was often appealing.

It was terrifying to be so much at the mercy of a mercurial memory, but he said nothing about it, absolutely nothing, to John, because Sherlock hated the anxiety it caused, the way John’s muscles would tense, drawing taut lines down his neck, doubtlessly irritating his recently re-injured shoulder.

It was obvious anyway. He knew it was. It was never with the clients or the deductions. Those came naturally, like water spilling through a breach in a dam. He didn’t need to control them, didn’t need to think about them – they were just there, like blaring adverts announcing the stupid secrets and petty problems they all had, which they wouldn’t have if they just paid attention for five minutes.

He knew it pleased John, too, to see this evidence of recovery. Or perhaps evidence that part of him had not been lost in that space of a few, fragile seconds.

He was still a genius.

And that genius failed him in baffling and utterly pedestrian ways.

He was in the kitchen one morning, his body having taken him there out of habit, and then habit evaporated, leaving him standing at the counter, staring at the cupboards, utterly at a loss. The kettle had boiled, but Sherlock didn’t remember the next steps, completely stymied by a simple task he couldn’t recall.

Then John came into the kitchen, took his hand and guided it to a cupboard handle and then, _then_ Sherlock remembered – or his body did – and he went through the motions: mugs, tea bags, sugar, spoons, milk from the fridge.

He forgot what to do one night in bed, their first together since he’d come home, mind going blank but not in that way John had taught him could be so pleasurable. John, outwardly unperturbed, had taken over, reminding him of what to do, how to make them both feel good.

More than once, he’d found himself on the stairs, uncertain if he was coming or going, or even if he’d just been going downstairs to Mrs. Hudson’s old flat. Each time, he’d climb back up to their flat and keep silent about it, although John so obviously knew and didn’t want to push it – and Sherlock hated that, wanted to be prodded and pestered until he just bloody well remembered whatever he’d meant to do and could get on with it.

He tried not to think, a perplexing task, appalled at the way conscious thought threatened to derail the whole process. The effort became too much, wearing him down, the same way having a constant watchful presence was, preventing him from working properly, from _thinking_ , suffocating him with careful evaluation, with well-intentioned questions, with questions withheld under the same misguided good intentions, stripping Baker Street away from him until it threatened to stop being home, to become a prison of other people and his own mind, until one day, _one day_ , when Lestrade had to leave early, shortly before John returned from work, Sherlock had a temporary reprieve in which he was by himself, was _only_ himself, could do whatever he wanted, so he took his keys and his phone (there was a note next to the door about that, even though he wasn’t allowed out unattended) and left, heading for Regent’s Park, intent on being back before John returned.

It was a brilliant plan, a victimless crime, and no one would be any the wiser. A few moments freedom, to be utterly and completely himself again (although without a case, which was a shame, but twenty minutes for a case with legwork was cutting it close, even for him), unfettered by his patchy memory, by John’s tension, by anyone else’s watchful eye.

It would have been flawless. It would have worked.

If he hadn’t forgotten how to get home.

 


	21. Chapter 21

If John had to pick one worst day, this was probably it.

He’d just stepped inside the house – hadn’t even had time to call out a hello that would have gone unanswered – when his phone rang. Sherlock’s number on the screen made his lungs tighten, but that was stupid, he told himself. Sherlock and Lestrade were probably just out somewhere, and Sherlock had been seized by a rare fit of generosity and decided to let John know.

Never mind that Sherlock didn’t call, he texted.

And he’s probably have made Lestrade do the work.

“Sherlock, hi,” he said, forcing his tone to light and unconcerned, gripping the banister so hard with his free hand his knuckles went white.

“John,” Sherlock replied, and there was a tension in his voice that made John set his jaw, anxiety tightening his back and shoulders.

“What is it?” John asked, heart hammering, trying to convince himself that everything was fine, absolutely fine, that Sherlock had gone out on some case with Lestrade, that he was calling only because he was annoyed John hadn’t magically known and shown up on his own.

There was a pause, too long to be natural, the anxiety of it making John’s lungs constrict. He was just about to prompt his partner for a reply when Sherlock spoke, quietly and reluctantly.

“I don’t know where I am.”

The world narrowed, concentrating itself solely on the sound of Sherlock’s voice, on the pounding pulse in John’s ears.

“Where–” he started to ask, then stopped himself, cursing the stupidity of the question and the lack of tracking device on Sherlock’s phone. Sherlock had installed one on John’s but John had never thought to return the favour. “Do you remember what direction you went?”

There was a huff on the other end of the line, almost typically Sherlock, John thought.

“I’m in a park.”

“Regent’s Park?” John demanded. “Near the flat?”

There was a pause, before Sherlock cleared his throat quietly.

“Yes. Probably.”

“Probably?”

“I– don’t recall it taking long to get here. And I only had a twenty minute window before you returned home.”

John let out a deep sigh, relaxing only minutely.

“Then probably yeah. What do you see? Close by.”

“There are people,” Sherlock replied dryly. “And trees.”

John set his jaw, fingers tightening on his phone as angry retorts lined up on his tongue. A bird’s eye view of the park flashed across his mind, well over a hundred hectares of green space full of trees and people.

Somewhere in the midst of that was his partner and best friend, lost and alone.

And Mary was still out there.

“Sher–”

“And a waterfall.”

John let out a harsh breath he hadn’t known he was holding, not caring if Sherlock heard it over the phone.

There was only place that fit that description, and it wasn’t too far.

“Okay,” John said, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried to think past the panic. “Um– just wait a second. Stay on the line. I’m not hanging up, all right?”

He fished his headphones out of his pocket and plugged them in, freeing up his hands and making Sherlock completely inaudible to anyone else but John himself.

“Okay, I’m coming to get you. Stay where you are. Don’t leave with anyone else.”

“Obviously,” Sherlock drawled, and John repressed a sigh because he could hear the undercurrent of uncertainty, and starting a row wouldn’t do any good.

“Talk to me,” John said instead, needing to distract Sherlock as much as he needed to distract himself. “Tell me about the people you can see. Give me their life’s stories.”

That would keep Sherlock occupied while giving John a better sense of his situation – if there was anyone suspicious – Mary or any of her people – Sherlock would pick up on it. They needed to take any advantage they had right now; the thought of Sherlock back in the hospital, or worse, made it difficult to see properly.

John sucked in a deep breath, repressing that fear mercilessly, and focused on his partner’s voice and on getting to him.

He stopped at Speedy’s quickly, grabbing two takeaway coffees, giving them a bit of a cover. Sherlock rattled off deductions on his ear, John hummed responses and asked questions here and there, trying not to waste too much of his breath on conversation.

The flood of pedestrians around Baker Street and Regent’s Park set him on edge in a way it never had before – John was as used to dodging tourists and school groups as any other local, but he felt wedged behind them today, every cluster or more than two people slowing him down, fanning a low burning resentment. He set his jaw, forcing himself to focus on Sherlock’s voice while moving as fast as he could, each step somehow taking an unnecessarily long time.

It took less than fifteen minutes but it could have been an eternity, made better only by the constant sound of Sherlock’s voice in his ear. John spent the whole way waiting for the monologue of observations to be cut off abruptly, to lose his only connection to the detective without having reached him first.

But Sherlock was there when John arrived, grey eyes tracking his progress intently – probably anyone else would have read it as impatience, but John knew his partner better than that. Impatient was Sherlock’s default state of being, but this had a hefty dose of fear and uncertainty mixed in, and no small amount of vulnerability.

He let out a sigh, consciously relaxing his shoulders, and closed the remaining distance between them, forcing a small smile.

“Hi,” John said, faking a casual tone and half wondering how he was pulling it off. “Sorry I took so long. I brought coffee.”

* * *

_John was coming_.

John was coming, and that was the only thing that mattered. Everything else paled in comparison to that fact, because Sherlock was no longer alone and adrift in a city of eight million people. He was tethered to the rest of the world, to his _life_ , to everything that made sense, to the one person who was truly important.

It made no sense that the fear hadn’t dissipated, that the trapped, vulnerable feeling clung to him, hemming him in, making him acutely aware of everything and everyone around him – more so than normal, so much so that it was almost painful. He _wasn’t_ alone, but he _felt_ alone.

It was a stupid feeling, he told himself.

John was coming.

Everything was right in the world.

Except it wasn’t, he knew it wasn’t, even as he obeyed John’s instruction to observe those around him. John’s reasoning behind that was obvious – it kept Sherlock occupied and alerted both of them to any potential threats.

Did John know that Sherlock himself was a potential threat?

How could he continue like this, with his mind so willing to sabotage him? How would he be able to take on cases if, without warning, all the connections would shatter, leaving him lost and bewildered, not knowing where to go next or how to get there?

What would John do with him?

In the months – years? – to come, would John put up with this? How would he manage? Would he stop working, follow Sherlock around until the adventure and exhilaration of a case became routine and suffocating? Until he wasn’t with Sherlock because he wanted to be, because he craved the speed of it all, the insanity, the adrenaline rush, but because he _had_ to be?

To keep Sherlock from getting himself lost.

What about today? What would John do today? Would he be angry? He hadn’t sounded angry on the phone. He’d sounded afraid.

Terrified.

But terror was an immediate, instinctual reaction to the situation at hand. An eons-old response evolved to identify threats and means of escape.

Anger came after, when the threat was neutralized, when it was evident how _stupid_ that threat had been, how it had been self-inflicted.

One of Mary’s people was watching him.

Sherlock realized it in the blink of an eye, clamping down on the nearly catastrophic comment and diverting John’s attention from any unexplained gaps in his observations by focusing on a woman pushing a buggy while being harried by a small toddler.

The woman encumbered by the children wasn’t Mary’s – children only made a good cover when they were easily controlled, which, even in Sherlock’s limited experience, he knew toddlers were not.

It was the man sitting across the small river from him, under the shade of a tree, reading a book on a bench.

He’d just arrived, seemingly innocuous, and Sherlock’s gaze had danced right passed him at first, but a second glance revealed it all – his posture, the way he held his book, the tilt of his head, the colour of his shoes. He might as well have been wearing a sign announcing it, except that it was only Sherlock’s awareness he wanted.

If he even wanted that.

He didn’t care, Sherlock decided. Neither of them could reach the other before their target had time to flee. He wasn’t armed, and he was alone.

This wasn’t a trap.

It was simple observation.

Mary letting him know she was watching.

But for what? Did she have a reason?

His continued good health? He could have stopped her right there if that was the case – the blow to his head had devastated his memory, and the damn bruises around his eyes were slow to fade.

If his health had been her concern, she’d have been better off not inflicting the concussion in the first place.

Was she providing an alternate solution in case John hadn’t been available?

He’d told John if she’d wanted him dead, he would be – but how far would she go to keep him alive? Was he necessary to her somehow, or simply convenient?

Or maybe just not inconvenient enough to let go of.

She certainly didn’t need to help him. Even without John, Mycroft would have had someone round him up within an hour.

Sherlock considered – briefly – that the reader might be one of his brother’s people. But no – he wouldn’t be allowed to keep his dignity this way. Anyone working for Mycroft would have approached him and been insufferable at him the way his brother always was.

Sherlock was certain Mycroft hired people exactly like him, for the express purpose of making Sherlock’s life all the more irritating.

Something tugged at his attention, not anything observable or conscious, but something more instinctive than that – John’s presence registering on his senses. Sherlock hated that he couldn’t quantify it properly; there had to be some logical, scientific explanation as to why he was so much more aware of John than he was of anything else.

There was the obvious emotional connection, of course, but it seemed to go beyond that, to something approaching a visceral awareness. Which was absurd. _He_ was in control of his mind, of what he perceived and observed. His brain didn’t have the right to do things without his express permission.

It did anyway.

It was how he’d ended up here, watching John close the distance between them, bearing coffee as a cover, the lines around his eyes and between his eyebrows screaming of a tension that no one else would pick up on. Particularly when he spoke, greeting Sherlock with a feigned lightness that award-winning actors would have paid to learn to emulate.

“Hi,” John said, extending one of the takeaway cups to Sherlock before plunking himself down on the bench. “Sorry I took so long. I brought coffee.”

* * *

Sherlock took the coffee readily, but John didn’t miss the way his partner’s hands trembled, ever so slightly, as he closed his fingers around the cup.

John sat down next to him, feeling caught in a maelstrom of tension and relief – both his and Sherlock’s – as they sat silently, sipping coffee and pretending to the rest of the world that absolutely nothing was wrong.

“Good day at work then?” Sherlock asked, and John heard the steadiness in his voice, the indifference to a subject he only cared about because it pertained to John – and he knew the tone was deliberate. It was only slightly too brittle for Sherlock, who would normally ask that question in a wearied drawl, less interested in John’s response than in a way of breaking up his own boredom.

“Yeah, fine thanks,” John replied, keeping his own tone hearty, a smile on his face. “Any clients today?”

“No,” Sherlock replied. John wondered if that were true – Sherlock rarely went a day without clients. But occasionally he went a day without bothering to see clients, too wrapped up in something else.

Of course, without his experiments, there probably wasn’t anything else demanding his attention, unless he’d been composing.

They sat for a few minutes in what would pass for companionable silence to anyone else, then John nodded, clapping a hand on his knee.

“Right. Shall we go?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Sherlock hissed emphatically, the word almost lost against the rim of his coffee cup.

John led him back through the park, aware of the tension pouring off of Sherlock as he kept step with John but utterly dependant on the doctor for direction.

The tension dissipated suddenly and John heard Sherlock whisper a quiet “oh”, relief washing through the doctor as Sherlock abruptly remembered where he was and how to get home from there. Silently and without really trying, John passed the lead to Sherlock, letting the detective get them back to Baker Street.

Upstairs, he made Sherlock sit through a quick medical evaluation, checking the responsiveness of his pupils, taking his pulse, quizzing Sherlock on his memory prompt from the hospital, which visibly annoyed the detective, but at least he answered. Sherlock suffered through it with glowers and huffs but no more strenuous protests, and John was glad he didn’t have to channel his old rugby skills because he really wasn’t above pinning his partner down right now, and not in an enjoyable way.

“Tea,” John said once he’d finished, more of a pronouncement than a question. Sherlock nodded, fidgetting slightly, but stayed seated on the sofa when John gave him a warning look. The doctor went into the kitchen, trying not to stalk, and flipped on the faucet, taking a moment for a long, deep breath, fingers curling around the edge of the counter.

_Right_ , he told himself, giving one firm, curt nod, ignoring the faint tremors he could feel in his hands. _Right. It’s fine. It’s all fine._

He pulled down two mugs, filled the kettle and switched it on, then bent double over the sink, gripping the edges of the metal basin, sucking in harsh breaths through his teeth.

He was _not_ having a panic attack, he told himself. He really wasn’t. He just had to get himself back under control. Just needed to convince his body that everything was fine. And he could do it, he absolutely could, he just needed a bit of time and to concentrate, not to breathe so quickly despite the fact that his body was screaming for oxygen he knew it was getting.

_It’s_ fine, he told himself again, somehow managing a shaky, baffled laugh because it so clearly wasn’t and if Sherlock were there, he’d point out how ridiculous conclusion was, based entirely on false premises, and Sherlock _was_ there, John reminded himself, he _was_ and he was fine, or would be fine, everything would be fine–

And then Sherlock was _there_ , solid and real, looming in the kitchen doorway, presence filling the room, accented by an undercurrent of his cologne and the smell of water, which was still pouring from the tap.

“John?”

* * *

“Oh Christ,” John managed, and folded in on himself, sinking to the floor, one hand gripping the counter as if it might keep him up, or perhaps as some sort of lifeline. Sherlock had crossed the kitchen and crouched down in front of John almost before he was aware of moving, far more focussed on his partner’s body than his own. John was breathing hard – too hard, beginning to hyperventilate, shoulders heaving, hands shaking visibly.

“John–”

He was cut off when John threw his arms around Sherlock’s shoulders and crushed the detective to him, fingers digging almost painfully into Sherlock’s back. Sherlock blinked, mind stuttering maddeningly under the shock, and he nearly pulled away, alarmed, when John’s gasping breaths dissolved very suddenly to sobs.

He managed to get his arms around John in return, holding on tightly and wincing against the strength in John’s grip. Surely no one shaking that hard should be able to hold on so tightly, but John clung to him as if letting go meant plummeting to his death – although maybe, to John, it did right now.

“It’s all right,” Sherlock said, which only served to worsen John’s anguish, nearly dragging them both down before Sherlock could steady them, muscles in his legs burning with the effort of keeping them steady and crouched.

He bit his lip against any more useless platitudes and rubbed John’s back, trying to give his partner some grounding in reality, some voiceless reassurance, as his mind spun, prodded on by itself, trying to devise a solution. Should he call 999? Was it possible to induce a seizure or dislocate a joint this way? How long could someone sustain this kind of hyperventilation before losing consciousness? Was cerebral hypoxia a concern?

He wanted to ask John, because under normal circumstances he would, but he couldn’t now, and his training with the dead eclipsed his experience with the living, leaving him at a loss for what to do other than to let John cling to him, sobbing. He’d never encountered a reaction this severe, even after rescuing clients from the brink of death.

Even after faking his own suicide, having trusted himself to a fall from several stories, when his life had seemed to slip away from him, tumbling into nothing until he’d hit the safety net, and everything had snapped, abruptly but also delayed, leaving him curled up in a foetal position that night on the floor at Mycroft’s, entirely expecting to die just from the shock of it.

Sherlock braced himself carefully, able to rock John slightly, wondering if it helped at all – certainly there must be something behind it, some vestigial connection to infancy, but if it made any difference, it wasn’t obvious; John clutched at him, face buried against Sherlock’s neck, soaking Sherlock’s shirt, racked by deep, rasping sobs.

Guilt settled in Sherlock’s stomach, spreading outward in rapidly growing tendrils until it constricted his lungs. This was his fault – if only he’d listened and not wandered off, if only he’d programmed their address into his phone so as to be able to retrace his steps… If only he’d stopped to _think_ , the one thing at which he truly excelled, that set him apart from the seething mass of humanity with whom he had to share the city, then he wouldn’t have sent John spiralling over this cliff, terror swallowing the reality that Sherlock was fine (now), that nothing untoward had befallen him.

“It’s all right,” he murmured again, not intending to speak the words, but recognizing them as echoes of how John had reassured him in the hospital, when he’d been untethered from everything _but_ John, convinced he’d slipped back into the drugs, or simply unaware of anything that had happened at all. “I’m right here.”

John jerked away abruptly, violently, and there were hands on his face before Sherlock could react, pulling him into a bruising kiss. Sherlock nearly lost his footing, struggling to keep his balance despite conflicting reactions at the sudden intensity, the shock stifled almost immediately a stab of lust that burned across his nerves when John growled, a primal, predatory sound.

He pushed Sherlock backwards, and the detective felt his heart stutter before slamming back into action, acutely aware of their positions and of the refrigerator right behind them; if John off-balanced them enough to push Sherlock beneath him, he’d hit his head–

A strong arm around his shoulders stopped that, pulling Sherlock back the other way, John shifting without breaking the kiss, adjusting them so that Sherlock was straddling him. John’s right hand slid down to hold Sherlock’s chin, keeping him in place as John rummaged through a drawer with his free hand, the growl of triumph that finally broke them apart making Sherlock feel weak, legs giving up what remained of his balance to sink the rest of the way, letting John take all his weight.

John grinned, dark and feral, shoving the lube at Sherlock, who took it, fumbling only slightly as fingers went to work on his belt and trousers. The abruptness of it almost hurt, the flare of discomfort followed by a sharp stab of pleasure that made him drop his head back, sucking in a deep breath through gritted teeth.

He made a strangled sound when John palmed him roughly through his pants, reaching out blindly to grab the edge of the counter for support. John huffed a warning, and Sherlock managed to raise his head again, forcing his eyes open to find the doctor watching him, unwavering gaze breaking something else down inside of Sherlock as his body picked up the rhythm of John’s hand, pleasure burning down every nerve.

John grinned again, a hand on the back of Sherlock’s neck pulling him into another kiss. Sherlock made a small noise of protest when John pulled his left hand away to undo his own jeans. He wrestled the lube from Sherlock’s fist, breaking the kiss to grasp the small tube between his teeth, expression intent, eyes gleaming, as he freed them each from their pants.

John met Sherlock’s eyes again, raising one eyebrow, and Sherlock tried not to shudder at the possessiveness of that expression. He managed a small nod, eyes fluttering closed when John grinned, popping the cap on the lube to coat his hand.

Sherlock dug his fingers into the unyielding surface of the counter at John’s sudden grip, the doctor setting a hard, merciless pace, stroking both of them together. Fingernails bit into his back and it was too much, the sensation of being trapped between John’s hand and John’s cock, but it wasn’t enough, not yet – he could feel himself hurtling towards the edge but resisting it almost instinctively, half desperate for, half terrified of the intensity of it, and he could taste John here and now but smell the crisp Welsh breeze–

John snarled, fingers curling into Sherlock’s hair at the base of his skull and tugging hard, and Sherlock came with a startled shout, nowhere to go as his orgasm swept through him at the same time as John’s, the doctor’s hand working them both through it roughly until the world went grey around the edges of Sherlock’s vision, pleasure peaking without any hint of breaking.

It did, suddenly, leaving him gasping, curling downwards towards John, who managed to catch him, one handed, his own shoulders heaving. For one moment – one delicious, sublime moment, no longer than the space of heartbeat – there was nothing but his body and John’s, his mind ecstatically blank, processing only the two of them, the heated air between them, the smell of sex, the serious expression on John’s face as he watched Sherlock intently, eyes rimmed red, cheeks tear-streaked.

Sherlock inhaled slowly, deeply, using the moment and the oxygen to kick his brain back into high gear. They needed cleaning up – this was hardly the ideal way to have this conversation, messy and half undressed, but there was something that needed to be said first. Sherlock took John’s face in his hands, as John had just done to him, but carefully, without any demands or fury.

“I’m sorry,” he said. And meant it.

John stared at him as if he’d spoken Greek, and Sherlock did a quick scan of the words to confirm that he hadn’t, baffled by his partner’s reaction.

“You’re sorry?” John demanded. Sherlock hesitated and nodded, scanning John’s face, trying and failing to find all of the little hints that would explain the confusion, unable to follow the reasoning behind John’s dry laugh, the way blue eyes skittered away from him before being drawn back as John shook his head.

“Sherlock–” John fumbled, for words and for a towel; Sherlock managed to snag the tea towel from the stove, passing it to the doctor who wiped them both down before pitching the towel away and tucking himself back into his clothing. Sherlock straightened himself back up as well, kneeling between John’s legs, uncertain and despising that uncertainty, trying to cajole his mind into understanding but failing.

He felt a moment’s fear that it was the concussion, but no – he’d felt this way before, once, when he’d first met the Woman. He’d been able to read John then, and he could still pick up all of the mundane thoughts and experiences etched into his partner’s features, but he didn’t understand _this_ , the dry almost-amusement and confusion that mixed into John’s expression.

“You’re sorry,” John repeated, voice almost weary, and Sherlock nodded, hesitantly. John gave a short, barking laugh, looking away again as if it would provide him with whatever answers he was looking for. “ _You’re_ sorry?”

“Yes,” Sherlock said, on the basis that it was both true and probably the right answer.

“Christ,” John said, dropping his head back to rest against a cupboard door, covering his face with his hands.

“You don’t get it, do you?” John asked, raising his head again. A small, wry smile quirked the corners of his lips and he shook his head once. “How do you not know?” he asked, the words dragging Sherlock back immediately, the way John so obviously knew they would. “Sherlock, how do _you_ not know?”

Fingers closed around Sherlock’s wrists before shifting upward to grip his hands.

“Was this the first time you went out on your own?” John asked.

“Yes,” Sherlock replied. Blue eyes raked over his features, and Sherlock let John see the truth to that statement.

“Until now, you’ve listened to everything I said? Done what I’ve told you and what the neurologist told you?”

“Yes,” Sherlock said again. “Mostly.”

“Mostly,” John echoed. “But nothing like this.”

“No.”

John laughed again, that harsh, unpleasant laugh, sitting forward, forcing Sherlock back onto his heels.

“Sherlock, you’re a bloody observational genius. You’re fucking brilliant at it but Christ are you bloody blind when it comes to yourself. You wandered off by yourself today and got lost – how do you _not_ understand how this makes me feel about Mary?”

Sherlock blinked, startled by the sudden turn in the conversation, and John seized the moment, cutting Sherlock off before he’d had the chance to draw a breath to speak.

“This is the first time you’ve been out on your own? The first? I expected you to have done it the day after we got home! Do you think I want this, Sherlock? Do you think I want to tell you that you can’t do all the things that make you _you_ , that you can’t do your experiments and set fire to the kitchen or that you can’t run off at a moment’s notice after some bad guy, leaving me to catch up, trusting – no, just _knowing_ that you can do it, that you won’t – I don’t know, somehow break in the middle of all it and forget what to do and get lost – or worse?”

He sucked in a hard breath, shaking his head when Sherlock opened his mouth to speak.

“Mary did this to you, Sherlock. She set you up to fake your own death to get rid of Moriarty, she played Harry and abandoned her, and then she did this – she took you away from _yourself_ , and you think I’m angry at _you_?”

“John–”

“Do you think I don’t worry every goddamn day that your memory won’t come back fully? That you won’t be the way you used to be? Sherlock, for god’s sake, I _want_ you to be breaking these stupid rules! I want you to give us all the slip and end up brilliantly solving some amazing case – I _want_ you to figure out where a kidnapped French author is when _no one else_ can bloody find him and storm in and save the day – and you _did_ save him and you _were_ brilliant and don’t you understand that she left you bleeding from your fucking _head_ in a burning building? She left you to _die_ , Sherlock, and you think I’m angry because you took a little walk?”

“She didn’t–” Sherlock began.

“She _did_ ,” John snarled. “You were in her way and she got you out of it and it could have killed you.” He paused, muscles in his jaw jumping, blue eyes blazing.

“She tried to take you from me.”

It finally clicked, all of it, the last sentence linking everything in a way that should have been obvious – would have been obvious if he’d been in full command of his faculties, no, that wasn’t true because his observational skills were fine.

Obvious to everyone else.

Not obvious to him.

John bundled Sherlock to him again, chin digging into Sherlock’s shoulder, fingertips tiny points of pressure on Sherlock’s back.

“How can someone so bloody smart be so bloody stupid at the same time?” he asked, but there was a fondness underlying his words, one that made Sherlock’s lips curl into the ghost of a smile. John pulled away carefully, fingers splayed on Sherlock’s cheeks, meeting his gaze squarely if somewhat hesitantly. “How do _you_ not know, Sherlock?”

“I–” Sherlock began before words failed him, stopping him from saying he understood. John huffed quietly, pulling him into another hug; bewildered, Sherlock wrapped his arms around his partner, trying to comprehend what John had said. Not the words, but the depth of it.

He should have known. He should have realized it ages ago. John had said as much when Sherlock had said he’d never been waiting for anything better to come along.

_“Yeah. Me neither.”_

Sherlock had accepted that as fact, but it hadn’t occurred to him precisely what John had meant then – not other potential romantic partners, because Sherlock had never had any interest in that beyond John and couldn’t actually fathom ever doing so – but to those who wanted to challenge his brilliance, to play with, or perhaps against, the world’s only consulting detective.

He understood Mary as much as he’d understood any of his opponents, as much as Moriarty or the Woman. Not in precisely the same way, because the connection wasn’t really there, or wasn’t really the same – Moriarty was like him on levels that transcended rationality and stirred no small amount of unease when Sherlock thought about it. Moriarty had been _bored_ , desperate for distraction in a world that didn’t understand him, couldn’t keep up with him, and the Woman– _the Woman_ … Sherlock understood her as deeply as Moriarty because she wanted the same things, but where Jim wanted distraction, she wanted connection, and Sherlock knew that feeling too, to the very core of him, but he’d meant it, every syllable, when he told John he’d never been waiting for anything else.

She’d found him after he’d already found it, before he’d had it fully but knowing it was there, and taking it utterly for granted.

Mary, on the other hand… Sherlock understood the practicality, the necessary mathematics. John did, too, in his own way – he was a trained surgeon and a former soldier. The decisions that had to be made in hard, bloody moments were as calculated as those Sherlock made, the ones that made him seem cold to people who operated entirely on sentiment, but that were balanced, considered, logical.

She’d had no real ill-will toward him, but no warmth either. He’d simply been in her way, then he hadn’t.

And, he realized abruptly, that was precisely what the Woman had done to them with Wales.

Sherlock had been in her way to Mycroft, and John had been in her way to Sherlock. She’d needed something and found the simplest, most effective way of getting it. Separating Sherlock from Mycroft, and John from Sherlock.

The calculation hadn’t been as cold, he _knew_ that, but perhaps it didn’t matter.

Mary had made the same calculation and come to a conclusion with which John would never, ever agree.

John drew away gently, resting his forehead against Sherlock’s, hands on Sherlock’s shoulders.

“She doesn’t get to make that decision,” he said. “She doesn’t have the right. No one does. Okay?”

Sherlock’s lips twitched and he managed a tiny nod without displacing his partner, closing his eyes and inhaling slowly, re-committing John’s smell to his somewhat erratic memory, storing it where he knew it could never get lost, in the sprawling rooms dedicated entirely to John.

“Yes,” he agreed. “All right.”


	22. Chapter 22

The next day, after Sherlock had proved to John that their address was programmed into his phone, John took them to the very heart of Central London, with its masses of people who made the narrow web of streets even more labyrinthine and complex.

The doctor's reasoning was entirely evident, but John felt the need to explain anyway, accompanied by a slightly apologetic shrug and a hint to his stance that he wasn't changing his mind.

"We can have a bit of a wander," John said. "You can update your map."

It was a decent day for it, at least; the drizzling rain – too light to do any real damage, particularly to Sherlock's hair and clothing – kept some of the crowds indoors, especially the tourists. Londoners occasionally sought shelter under their uniform black umbrellas as they scurried past, although most decided to forgo those in favour of easy navigation through the crowds.

Sherlock he felt like he stuck out more than he likely did; under normal circumstances, he would have welcomed the attention (he wouldn't admit it out loud, but John seemed to know anyway), but the persistent black eyes, which were slow to fade, made him self-conscious. He loathed the sunken appearance they gave him, the way people looked at him, alarmed or pitying.

He half wished it were cold enough for his coat and wet enough for an umbrella. The combination of blacks would make him nearly invisible in the sea of people, but the rain had the effect of diverting people's attention anyway.

There was nothing for it – his mental map _did_ need updating and reinforcing, and John wasn't about to acquiesce and just let them go home. Not after yesterday.

Nor did Sherlock wish to be at the mercy of his mind like that again. The neurologist had told him that resuming his regular routine was the best treatment for him now – which was difficult, because he'd always disdained routine. It smacked of apathy, of being content in not thinking, and he avoided it at all costs.

It also helped keep his opponents from getting too close, from predicting his behaviour.

But of course, he told himself, that had happened anyway.

He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, alert to any change in John's presence that would indicate his partner had picked up on that momentary discomfort. He didn't want John guessing the truth, but more so, he didn't want John attributing it to him having lost his way.

Which did happen, more than once. Each time, John would pause and let Sherlock regain his bearings, even if it meant retracing their winding steps until something clicked, realigning him with the city streets. Only once did he have to ask John which way to turn, less for direction and more because his mind had turned suddenly indecisive, leaving him unable to choose.

John had guided them to the right, and had let Sherlock take charge again from there.

Sherlock kept them out for over two hours, wandering with only an eventual goal in mind: Baker Street. They revisited some areas a few times, bypassing others altogether on the basis that they looked boring to Sherlock. He memorized the pattern of streets and their character wherever they went, paying attention to the subtle shifts in feel and detail far more so than the more evident ones, able to pinpoint the moment they stepped into the one-kilometer radius he considered the core of his territory.

Still, Sherlock didn't lead them straight home, but took the opportunity to reconnoitre a bit more, to ensure the area was as familiar to him as the rooms at Baker Street. He took them on a winding route but avoided the park, not entirely comfortable to subjecting himself or John to that again so soon.

It felt like a victory, turning the corner, their flat in view and only a short walk away. The sight of it made John grin, amplifying Sherlock's triumph, sparking a smugness that he really had no right to feel, because he hadn't done anything especially spectacular – but he didn't care one whit.

His mind had abandoned him yesterday, leaving him helpless and defenseless, utterly reliant on someone else, the way he had been from the moment Mary had struck him.

Today it was _his_ again – patchy, yes, and still not strong enough to be completely trustworthy, but for those moments he had John, and he had the knowledge that he had wrestled his life back under his control, that anyone standing in his way was nothing more than an inconvenient obstacle and could not take his mind from him, not fully and never more than temporarily, that he _was_ really himself again.

And that John was there, always.

Just the two of them, against the rest of the world.

As it should be.

It was unfortunate, then, that his brother had chosen that precise day – that precise moment – to insinuate himself, utterly uninvited and unbearably smug, into their flat.

* * *

John supposed that, one day, it might stop surprising him when Mycroft simply appeared out of the blue, unhampered by things like locks or laws, making himself at home in his flat and somehow managing to broadcast a superior attitude that chided them for keeping him waiting.

One day.

But not today.

And not because he'd clearly helped himself to the unopened packet of biscuits John had bought just the other day, or the way he'd commandeered one of Mrs. Hudson's best tea cups and saucers to enjoy a cuppa while seated in Sherlock's chair – or even really the fact that he'd waltzed in while they were away, as if he had the right.

Today it was the large dog, dark brown fur deepening to black around the ears and snout – possibly a German shepherd, John thought – sitting next to him, ears perked up when John and Sherlock came in, watching them with a disconcertingly alert expression.

Sherlock shut down the way John expected him to, the way he always did when Mycroft showed up unexpectedly, that familiar defensiveness made even worse by his partner's heightened awareness of his own vulnerability.

John had no doubt Mycroft knew what had happened yesterday in the park. That the timing of his visit was no coincidence.

If he knew it, then Sherlock knew it.

It was the last thing either of them needed, especially after such a good day – John had felt Sherlock really being Sherlock again, rebuilding a crumbled confidence that he hadn't ever fully admitted to. It had been working – it _had_ worked, John had felt the shift in his partner today more so than any other day, including when they'd come home from the hospital.

And here was Mycroft, ready and utterly able to dismantle that within seconds.

Without thinking about it, John stepped forward, half in front of Sherlock, subjecting Mycroft to a hard captain's glare, the expression turning stonier when Mycroft met his gaze levelly, as if he were an interesting laboratory specimen or an unexpected insect.

"There are laws about private property," John said. "And you're not the one who's friends with the police."

"He's not friends with anyone," Sherlock comment, voice flat, and under other circumstances, John might have smiled.

Not today. Not after the progress Sherlock had just made, that hadn't had time to sink in, cement itself.

"Quite right," Mycroft said, irritatingly unperturbed by what to anyone else would have been a pointed insult. "I do, however, have family that I'm inclined to think fondly of, from time to time. And to be responsible for, all of the time."

"I don't need your protection," Sherlock snapped, and John hated the imbalance there, the way it reverted two adult men back to childhood, when the seven-year age gap meant something, when Sherlock – probably as intractable as a child as he was now – needed that kind of supervision.

"And I'm not here to provide it," Mycroft replied with unflappable equanimity. "Beyond what I've already put in place, of course."

Sherlock bristled – John could see it and feel it, and tried to subdue his own exasperated reaction. Mycroft _always_ had some kind of surveillance on Sherlock, he reminded himself. It didn't really help knowing that Mycroft's watchful eyes were probably more necessary now than normal. Mary _was_ still out there, and John wasn't about to trust that she'd leave well enough alone.

"I came to see how you're getting on," Mycroft continued.

"Can't count on your spies to report that accurately?" Sherlock snapped.

"You're my brother, Sherlock," Mycroft sighed, rolling his eyes. "I'd rather see for myself."

"I'm fine," Sherlock said shortly. Mycroft studied him neutrally, gave a small nod, and turned his gaze to John.

The doctor crossed his arms, unconsciously adjusting himself into a more military stance, arching an eyebrow.

"Your opinion as a medical professional, Doctor Watson?"

"He's improving exactly as he should be," John replied.

Mycroft sighed quietly, setting his teacup aside.

"Despite the incident yesterday?"

John caught the way Sherlock's hands curled into fists but ignored it, keeping his gaze on Mycroft.

"Yes. If there's anything we think you need to know, we'll tell you. Otherwise, leave it to the professionals."

This time, the expression John caught out the corner of his eye was one of suppressed triumph; he saw his partner's lips curl slightly, almost immediately smothered back to an annoyed glare aimed at Mycroft, and hoped that Sherlock took this – as much as everything John had said yesterday – as evidence that he was firmly and unquestioningly always on his side.

Mycroft studied John for a moment, and the doctor refused to back down, feeling a stab of success when the older Holmes brother acquiesced with a faint nod.

"Far be it for me to question your expertise," he said.

"Ha," Sherlock muttered under his breath, and Mycroft slid his gaze levelly back to his brother.

"I do also have a gift for you, one the hospital was unwilling to permit me." He reached over to pat the dog's head, and its tail picked up, thumping hopefully against the floor.

"I don't want it," Sherlock said shortly.

Mycroft sighed again, leaning forward, hands clasped loosely between his knees.

"Her," he said. "And of course you do."

"Absolutely not," Sherlock retorted, at the same time as John asked: "Why are you so sure he'd want it?"

"Because he spent his entire childhood pestering our parents for a dog," Mycroft replied. "Our father is, unfortunately for Sherlock, allergic. He did have a succession of hamsters, although that's not quite the same, I gather. More difficult to involve in pirate adventures. Still, better a small rodent that's easily caged than a pet with a mind of its own. Or another child."

"What?" John demanded, swinging his gaze to Sherlock.

"Oh yes, he was very adamant about wanting a sibling. For several years. A younger one, of course."

"Oh lord," John muttered, covering his eyes briefly. "You're not going to tell me you've got some secret brother I don't know about. Or sister?"

"No," Sherlock said coolly, and John glanced at Mycroft, glad when the elder Holmes shook his head.

"Happily, our parents had the sense to stop."

"One of Mycroft is more than enough," Sherlock said, and John let himself grin.

"Consider this fulfillment of a childhood dream," Mycroft said.

"I don't want it," Sherlock repeated.

Mycroft sighed heavily, rolling his eyes.

"Why on Earth not?"

"Because you picked it," Sherlock said. "You picked _that_ one."

"That one?" John echoed. "What's wrong with that one?"

"It's a Beauceron, John."

He'd been wrong about the breed, but what he knew about dog breeds could probably fit comfortably into a thimble. John shrugged, giving his head a small shake.

"So?" he asked.

"Highly intelligent but notoriously disobedient," Sherlock said, fixing Mycroft with a dark, penetrative glare.

"She's a gift, Sherlock," Mycroft sighed. "Not a criticism. She's also three years old and has been extremely well trained to very exacting standards."

"Three years?" John demanded, seeing the surprised look relax Sherlock's features. "You bought her three years ago?"

"Yes," Mycroft said simply.

John glanced at Sherlock, who didn't meet his eyes, gaze still trained intently on his brother.

"She's also familiar with your scent. Has been since she was a puppy."

"How?" John demanded.

"He really ought to take more care with his clothing."

Sherlock threw up his hands in disgust, then jabbed a finger toward the door.

"Out!" he snapped. Mycroft waited a long moment, too long to be comfortable, then rose, gathering his ever-present umbrella.

"It's good to see you looking better," he said. "Mummy and Father will want to come around soon, of course. I'll pass on your best to them."

"Out!" Sherlock repeated, muscles in his jaw jumping. John crossed the room and opened the door pointedly, giving Mycroft a warning look.

"I'll stop in again soon," Mycroft said pleasantly, making his way to the door, apparently utterly unconcerned by the death wish Sherlock was clearly aiming his way.

"Wait," John sighed as Mycroft stepped over the threshold. "What's her name."

The elder Holmes smiled, a genuine smile with no small hint of glee.

"Princess," he replied.

John shut the door firmly behind him, throwing the deadbolt audibly, cast a quick glance at Sherlock to make sure he wasn't about to find his gun and commit fratricide, then crossed over to the window, watching intently until Mycroft left.

"He's gone," he said, turning back and stopping abruptly, startled to find that Sherlock had moved to kneel in front of the dog, letting her sniff his hands and lick his face, her tail wagging furiously.

He opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and let Sherlock have the moment, aware of the brightness in his partner's eyes, the indefinable sensation that mixed hesitancy and wistfulness and relief and joy.

"Hello there," Sherlock murmured, scratching behind her ears, and the dog tipped her head back, blissful. "We'll have to get you a better name, won't we?"

He glanced up at John as if suddenly remembering the doctor was there, and John couldn't help the small smile that tugged at the edges of his lips.

"She's _your_ dog," he said, trying for sternness and knowing he'd failed completely. "You have to take care of her."

And he knew as he said it that she'd be Sherlock's dog first and foremost, but she'd also be _their_ dog, because, when it came down to it, there was no pulling apart their lives that much, no delineating themselves that sharply.

The look Sherlock gave him in return told John that the detective knew it, too.

"You have to rename her though," John warned. "That one's on you."

* * *

Sherlock spent the better part of the day thinking about it, and John very cautiously let him return to some experiments so he could focus his mind. Composing might have had the same effect, but insisting Sherlock write music never worked, and he could see his partner itching to possibly cause some minor catastrophe.

He was uneasy about it, but it wasn't fair to keep saying no, and John recognized there would probably never be a single good time to let Sherlock start again.

Especially given his tendency to nearly poison them or to start small fires.

But first, John made them head to the shops, where they bought all of the supplies they'd need: a new collar (Sherlock had vetoed the one the dog was already wearing), a lead, food, baggies, toys, a bed. She was too big to sleep with them – their bed was snug enough for two grown men – but John suspected he'd have to be the one to put his foot down about that.

And that he might not always win.

They took her for a walk, pleasantly surprised at how well behaved she was – but then again, Mycroft wasn't the type to invest in half-hearted training. This time, Sherlock did take them into the park, both of them hesitant, the dog giving them puzzled looks as if picking up on their reluctance.

But she needed to know the smells in her immediate area, and if Sherlock came here with her again, John wanted them both to feel comfortable.

She settled remarkably well into the flat; they opened all of the doors and let her wander both upstairs and down, making an olfactory map. It didn't escape John's notice that whenever she saw Sherlock or found a spot where he spent a lot of time, like his armchair or his side of the bed, that she perked up, her tail wagging.

And he wondered about Mycroft, who insisted that sentiment was such a flaw, yet had planned years ahead to give his brother a gift Sherlock had wanted all of his life.

 _Maybe it's not as bad as all that, then_ , John thought, a fond smile tugging at his lips when the dog padded over to where they were seated on the sofa, Sherlock sprawled all over John, to rest her chin against Sherlock's knee. Almost unconsciously, as if he'd been doing it for ages, Sherlock reached down without looking, scratching her behind the ears.

"Hudson," Sherlock said suddenly, drowning out the dialogue on the television – although he'd been doing that anyway, having abandoned his experiments to provide a running commentary on the show John had been trying to watch. John had let him without even any cursory protests, recognizing it was another way Sherlock kept himself thinking, turning a question over and over in his mind and using small distractions to help focus.

"What?" John asked, derailed by the abrupt change in topic.

"Her name," Sherlock said, glancing back down at the dog. "It should be Hudson."

John's lips stretched into a grin, something warming inside of him, and he tickled the arch of Sherlock's left foot, enjoying the way it made his partner jump slightly and glare at him.

"You just want to shout that name down the stairs again, don't you?" he asked.

Sherlock's lips twitched, the muscles in his face shifting to try and contain the smile, but his grey eyes were bright – even though he refused to meet John's gaze, staring intently at the television instead, as if suddenly absorbed by the program's plot.

"Honestly, John," Sherlock sniffed, and John's grin widened, a chuckle reverberating in his chest. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Well," John said, still grinning, reaching past Sherlock to scratch Hudson under the chin, "I think it's perfect."


	23. Chapter 23

John tried not to jiggle his legs, impatient and hemmed in by the London traffic. The back of the cab, usually a generous space, felt far too confining – in no small part because he was sat right next to Sherlock, his heightened senses hyper aware of the detective's smell. It was his cologne, the one that frankly drove John mad – but in a very good way – the scent accentuated by having run halfway across London, chasing a suspect.

It didn't help that every small shift in movement, which John thought was deliberate, brought Sherlock into contact with him in some way – a brush of a hand against his, the mild pressure from Sherlock's knee as he braced himself against turning a corner.

John's heart rate hadn't slowed much since they'd caught the man, but not from exertion.

He willed the cabbie to drive faster, to ignore the stop lights and pedestrians, to get them back to Baker Street _now_ , before he lost his grip on the last of his control and made a very public scene.

_Breathe_ , he told himself, exhaling slowly, digging the heels of his hands into his thighs.

Sherlock caught the action and smirked, and John set his jaw, refusing to meet his partner's gaze.

Christ, he'd missed this – he hadn't realized how much until now, and almost wished the revelation had waited just a few more minutes until they were out of the cab – Sherlock miraculously taking care of the fare – and into the house, where John shoved his partner against a wall, holding back just enough to keep Sherlock's head from connecting with the hard surface.

He wrapped a hand around Sherlock's neck, pulling the detective down into a bruising kiss, fumbling with his free hand for something on one of the hooks next to him. Sherlock growled when John pulled away, expression shifting to surprise when John pulled the hat over his curls.

"No," Sherlock said.

"Yes," John snarled, grasping Sherlock by the lapels of his suit jacket, pulling him down until they were nose to nose. "I want the bloody genius detective."

Sherlock gave him a cool look, then drew away, grey eyes locked on John as he reached up to adjust the hat, carefully and deliberately.

"Christ," John managed, swallowing hard, and Sherlock grinned wolfishly, catching John in a hard kiss and pushing them away from the wall.

John nearly stumbled on the stairs, trying to keep up while moving backwards, Sherlock's hands on his face making it impossible to break away, even if he'd wanted to. Lips moved demandingly against his, a tongue stroked his roughly. His foot caught; Sherlock kept him up, clearing the last few stairs, one of them fumbling to open the flat door so Sherlock could push them through it.

The detective's kicked the door shut with one foot, pushing John's light jacket from his shoulders; John shook it off without breaking the kiss, letting it hit the floor with a soft whump. He ran his hands greedily up Sherlock's chest and back down, dispensing with the suit jacket, going to work on shirt buttons.

A grunt was lost between them; John felt one of Sherlock's knees buckle slightly, angling a thigh between his, and he tilted his hips in response, taking advantage of the situation.

"Go lie down, Hudson," Sherlock managed, drawing away long enough to voice the command, the snap of long fingers reaching John dimly. Whatever guilt he might have felt about ignoring the dog evaporated when Sherlock moved his thigh, making John whimper as blood rushed south. He pressed against it harder, nearly falling when Sherlock forced him back, kept up by fingers hooked through his belt loops.

They stumbled across the room, shoes coming off as they did so, the angle of their kiss changing slightly as Sherlock paused to scoop a small tube from beneath the cushion of John's chair. The doctor hadn't known it was there, but its presence made every nerve in his body sing. He caught a moan in his mouth as he fumbled with Sherlock's belt, trying to keep up as he was pushed backwards.

He hit the wall with a grunt, abandoning the belt, fisting hands into dark hair, pulling Sherlock closer as he moved to force the detective's thigh between his own again. Sherlock groaned, pressing harder. Any rational thoughts John had left were abandoned, being pinned was the only thing that kept him up against the sharp, sudden pleasure. He gasped, tilting his head back into the unyielding surface, fingers digging into the back of Sherlock's neck when the detective dipped his head, sucking and nipping on John's neck. A whimper slipped past his lips as he thrust, almost painfully hard.

"I'm going to fuck you," Sherlock whispered, breath hot against John's ear, the polished baritone contrasting with the words, and John groaned, managing a desperate nod. He was spun around before he knew it, giving him no time to resist the movement. The tube vanished briefly, long enough for skilled fingers to undo his jeans, letting them and his pants fall to his ankles. John spread his legs as best he could, forearms pressed against the wall, head hanging.

The snap of a cap made him shudder; the tube was pressed into one of his hands before slick fingers traced between his ass cheeks. John bit his lip against a sound when Sherlock slipped a finger into him, stroking roughly. He arched his back, offsetting some of the pain, and dropped his head again as Sherlock fucked him open mercilessly, adding a second finger before John had had enough time to adjust, finding his prostate unerringly.

A startled cry escaped him, one hand closing convulsively over the tube, the other digging into the wall, fingernails scrapping the patterned paper. Sherlock pressed harder, focusing on the tiny gland; John felt his knees buckle and locked them hard, pushing back and whimpering, breath coming in desperate gasps.

The lube was wrestled from him, the faint sound of fabric falling registering as a shock of anticipation that jolted his entire body. John moaned at the sound of skin against skin, trying to look over his shoulder for the view, but Sherlock closed one hand over his wrists, face pressed against John's, the other hand between them to adjust himself before he pushed in.

John gritted his teeth, eyes screwed shut, pushing back despite the stab of pain. Sherlock's free hand pressed against his abdomen, keeping them together, accentuating the growing pressure in his groin. A groan reverberated in John's ear, hot breath against his skin, and he twisted his head enough to find Sherlock in a messy kiss as the detective began thrusting, hitting his prostate with each stroke.

"Sh–" he managed, head falling forward again as Sherlock pounded into him. "Hhn–" Something combining a whimper and a groan slipped from swollen lips as Sherlock thrust. His cock was aching to be touched, so close to Sherlock's hand, but he didn't dare loose his white-knuckle grip on the wall and risk falling.

"Please," John managed, the word thick and slurred. He felt a wolfish smile against his cheek, Sherlock's breath coming in hard pants. John tipped his head back, screwing his eyes shut, when Sherlock slammed him up against the wall, fucking him harder. Hands were on his hips now, keeping them together, fingers digging in hard enough to form bruises. The friction from the wall was going to be enough; John could feel himself getting tighter, making Sherlock groan as he kept moving, everything coalescing, going dark around the edges.

"Fuck," he heard himself say, whimpering as he tried to move in time with Sherlock, at the rough sensation of the wall against sensitive skin. He gave a startled gasp when a hand squeezed his aching balls before closing around his cock, gritting his teeth and fucking Sherlock's fist the way Sherlock was fucking him, shuddering at the uneven feel of dry and lube-slicked skin.

A thumb pressed into his cockhead, swiping back and forth mercilessly, and Sherlock thrust hard, as deep as he could. John shouted, pushing back, and a deep groan rumbled from Sherlock's throat. John's breath caught in his chest, heightening the pleasure until it snapped and he was able to exhale, shaky hands pressing harder against the wall to keep them both up.

"God," he managed, and felt the vibration of laughter against his back.

"Not quite," Sherlock murmured, and John hardly cared that the grin spreading across his lips was a dopey one.

"Awfully humble for you," he said, shifting as Sherlock did behind him, turning his back to the wall, grateful for the support. Lips found his, a thumb and forefinger tilting John's chin up.

"I shouldn't think I have much to be humble about," Sherlock replied, cocking an eyebrow. John grinned, reaching up to pull the hat off, letting Sherlock's now matted curls spring free.

"Bloody brilliant how you do that," he managed.

"Do what?" Sherlock asked, bracing his forearms against the wall on either side of John's head, cocking an eyebrow.

"All of it," John said, feeling his cheeks go red but refusing to look away.

"Hmm," Sherlock hummed, and John felt a tiny shiver go through him. "Well, as you said, I am a genius."

"Lestrade'll be happy."

"Who cares about him?" Sherlock growled, leaning in for another kiss, sighing when Hudson nudged her nose between their knees.

"You need to take her for a walk," John said. Sherlock huffed, plucking the hat from John's fingers and tossing it aside. "It can't all be fun and cases."

"I don't see why not," Sherlock muttered, pulling away with a resigned sigh, absently and automatically reaching down to scratch the dog behind her ears. "If we took her on cases, she wouldn't need a walk."

"Trying to get rid of me?" John asked.

"Hardly," Sherlock sniffed. "But I could use her expertise."

"What, her expertise in being adoring of you?"

" _Someone_ should be," Sherlock said, and John grinned.

"Didn't realize you were feeling so unappreciated. Good job there'll probably be a hoard of reporters here soon, all excited that Sherlock Holmes is back on the job."

Sherlock looked genuinely alarmed, casting a glance towards the living room windows.

"Do you think?"

"Better take Hudson out before they show up," John said, grinning again when Sherlock shot him a mock scowl.

He ended up joining them, more to get Sherlock out of the house with Hudson – in the few weeks they'd had her, Sherlock had proven himself very responsible with her, but was always more willing to take her out if John tagged along.

At first, John had thought Sherlock was apprehensive about being out on his own – and maybe he had been, but that had faded as the days, then weeks, slipped past.

John didn't know what the tipping point had been, or even if there had been one – maybe the first time he'd taken Sherlock out to wander the city, maybe the dog, or maybe he'd been galvanized after getting lost in Regent's Park. Whatever it was, the stuttering progress Sherlock had been making after he'd first been released from the hospital had intensified and become far more consistent. He'd started taking clients more, even consulting for the Met from the flat, sending John out with an active Skype session, as he'd done before, to gather data while he lounged in the comfort of his chair or on the sofa, usually in his chocolate-brown dressing gown.

Today had been the first police case Sherlock had actively participated in, and it felt like another major turning point, real evidence that he was still himself, hell bent on chasing the high from the case, on proving his brilliance, on dragging a willing John behind him.

John knew the first case Sherlock took without him – when he couldn't get away from work, no matter what he tried – would make him a bundle of nerves, but he looked forward to it as much as he dreaded it. Sherlock was Sherlock again, flirting with danger and throwing his brilliance in the face of whoever tried to outsmart him, walking away from all of it, triumphant.

Every step, no matter how small (but the really big ones more so) felt like a victory to John. Like another jab at Mary, reminding her that she couldn't win so easily.

He knew Sherlock didn't think of her actions that way, that the detective understood – and maybe even respected, to some degree – the practicality of the choice she'd made.

John didn't.

He never would.

Sherlock knew that too – John had felt that realization when it had first happened, almost too far gone in a panic attack to understand it, but not _quite_ , and he'd seen it settling in, catching it in the way Sherlock glanced at him sometimes, as if surprised by something, or coming to terms with a new, startling, idea.

There was no price he could put on things returning to normal – or at least what passed for normal for them, which John wouldn't have traded for the world. The first case for the Met led to another, and another, and Lestrade and Amanda lost any concern they might have had about enlisting Sherlock's help, falling back into the habit of calling him at all hours, giving him a spotlight for his genius, making him shine.

It was evident enough to John that, while Sherlock's mind was recovering at a more rapid rate, he needed to regain some of his physical stamina as well. With the neurologist's approval, John hired a fencing partner for the detective, a tiny, fifty year old Japanese woman whom Sherlock had regarded skeptically at first – at least, until she'd soundly beaten him in under two minutes.

It wasn't unusual now to come home from the surgery to find them sparring up and down the stairs, Hudson barking joyously behind them.

John loved it, every chaotic minute of it, and it was more than enough to offset the increasingly rarer moments when Sherlock's memory failed him. Even those faded to habitual tasks like making tea or moving from one room to another in search of something. John guided him through it at first, but backed off more and more as time wore on, letting Sherlock work through it, intervening only when absolutely necessary.

The shadows cast over them by Irene Adler faded – Sherlock never spoke of her, but then again, he never really had. John had wanted to push it but resisted; Sherlock had made himself clear after Wales and John knew it would annoy the detective to feel like his word was being doubted. Still, John wondered if Sherlock had mourned her, even in some vague way. Maybe as the passing of a worthy adversary.

But after Wales, very probably not. It kept surprising John how fiercely loyal Sherlock was, and he supposed if the detective had regretted Adler's death, he would also have regretted Moriarty's in some way.

Maybe he did. John refused to let himself think too much on that; it led nowhere good, and dead was dead.

The reality of that hit home for John, very literally one evening when the late autumn rain had driven them indoors, hinting at the encroaching winter, dampening the habitual hustle and noise just outside their door.

He was floating, detached but loosely tethered, a tenuous connection through which he could feel sensation and pleasure. Aware of them like he might be distant clouds on the horizon, or a steady background noise whose presence made itself known gradually. Skin against skin, the vibration of a hum as lips moved over his neck, tilting his head back.

He felt distant. Hollow. Not desperate, not hurt, not even numb. A surrender, but not one with fear. Regret – for the necessity, but for more than that.

It had been coming for a long time, but this – Sherlock moving gently, violinist's fingers playing him as skilfully as they did the strings, lips meeting John's without demand, a warm harmony amidst all the other warmths. Entangled limbs. Sharp desire. Muted sounds.

This made it real.

John closed his eyes. It hardly mattered. He could see it in his head like a map, the changes overlain by ghosts of the way it had been, before they had gradually and by unspoken agreement taken over the ground floor flat. An unintentional migration. A handful of things moved upstairs. Books donated to a charity shop, bookshelves refilled from the overabundance on the first floor. A small piece of furniture replaced. Linens and duvets swapped out for a guest. Pieces of Sherlock's experiments relocated to the empty fridge. A larger piece of furniture – the sofa – substituted for a new one.

They'd never talked about it. Sherlock had found an issue (or several) with each prospective tenant. Had probably made up several faults, but John had gone along with it. It was easier to agree than make the change. Financial details had evaporated without comment from Mycroft. Separate homes had spread and melded into one, distinguished only by the stairs that no longer separate them, but linked them. Mrs. Hudson's had become "the ground floor flat", then, simply, "downstairs".

It still might not have been real, it still might have changed.

Until this.

John heard a noise slip past his lips; the shudder – his own, Sherlock's – pulled him back, limbs tingling as though awareness was like blood flow returning. There was a soft sigh, audible only as the breath moved past his ear; John laced his fingers into Sherlock's curls, keeping him where he was. For a moment, he wanted nothing direct, no real acknowledgement of what this was. A farewell – not to memory but to an idea, a possibility that hadn't really been possible at all.

Sherlock's patience wore out the moment John expected it to. A small smile twitched on John's lips as the detective huffed, raising his head, gaze studious, serious. The tip of a nose touched his own; John let piercing grey eyes scour his until Sherlock was satisfied – or as satisfied as he ever could be. The kiss might have been brief, but John let it linger, a touch of reassurance and thanks. Sherlock huffed again, almost affronted, and John smiled genuinely this time, a low chuckle reverberating in his chest.

The blanket was tugged from the back of the sofa and draped them as limbs fitted around each other out of practiced habit. Sherlock enveloped John as only he knew how to; the doctor pressed a kiss against a sharply defined clavicle and nestled against a now-familiar body. A sigh gusted across the crown of his head before Sherlock's chin came to rest there, fingertips trailing absently up and down John's spine. Secure in the embrace, John closed his eyes and let sleep banish the last of the fading sorrow.

The change made Baker Street feel both more and less like home, as if they had finally acknowledged there was no going back to the way things used to be, not entirely, but that the whole house was well and truly _theirs_. It seemed strange to John to have so much space, and to admit that the arrangement was permanent, but it felt right. They would never have to erase Mrs. Hudson entirely this way, and the dog – who carried her name – went between the flats the same way her namesake had, and often with the same motherly sense. John found himself being checked up on regularly, and, even if she couldn't make tea, it reminded him to take a break if it was needed, or round Sherlock up to get some fresh air.

Winter crept in, shrouding the city in lengthening periods of darkness, but John found late November brightened by a visit from Alexandre, who had kept his word about visiting once Sherlock had recovered.

He came alone, which John was grateful for – Baker Street wasn't even remotely baby-proofed, and unless John missed his guess, Élodie would have been walking by now, or very close to.

If John hadn't know what had happened, he would never have suspected that Alexandre had been the victim of an abduction by an international criminal who had snatched him from his home country and smuggled into another to use him as a game piece against yet another international criminal. He was back to the cheery self John remembered from Paris – even as the doctor scrutinized Alexandre's face (hopefully discreetly), he couldn't see any tension or reluctance hovering just below the surface.

Sherlock probably could, and John actually hoped he did. Not just because it was what Sherlock did, reading people so effortlessly, but because it would give the detective more insight into someone he still didn't readily remember.

Sherlock could recall most of their trip to Paris, but bits and pieces were missing. He had vague recollections of being in Alexandre's apartment, but impressions more than actual information – although, much to John's surprise, he had remembered the baby.

The majority of his memories centered – perhaps unsurprisingly – around John.

Alexandre had no such problem of course, and chatted happily about his friends in the _gens d'armes_ who were fans of Sherlock's, whom he'd first mentioned during Sherlock and John's visit, and presented Sherlock with a number of business cards, each with personal and heartfelt thank you notes written on the back.

"Anytime you need something, they told me to tell you to call," Alexandre said. "Anything at all."

Sherlock looked pleased by the sudden jump in his contacts, especially foreign ones, and John wondered what kind of trouble this would get them into.

After Alexandre had left, Sherlock carefully catalogued all of the new contact information into his phone, deliberately ignoring John, who watched with an amused smirk. Maybe – just maybe – if he played it right, there could be another trip to Paris in their future. He'd certainly enjoyed the first one.

Although he could have done without all of the fallout afterwards. They both could have.

Next time, he told himself, they'd be better prepared.

The dead were dead, and Adler might be gone from their lives, but they still had living threats to worry about.

Or at least he did. For all the damage Mary had inflicted on Sherlock, the detective was irritatingly blasé about her. John knew full well that Mycroft kept a sharp eye on them, much to Sherlock's dissatisfaction, but he couldn't shake the knowledge that she'd fooled Mycroft for months and had eluded all attempts to find her.

He doubted they'd seen the last of her – despite her promise to Sherlock that they'd never see her again. It didn't have to be her, after all. The last time (two times if John counted Wales), it had been Bridget. It wasn't going to be her again; the police had had as much luck tracking her as they had Mary. Occasionally, John wondered where she was and vaguely hoped she was all right.

Despite it all, she'd saved their lives twice.

Of course, Mary's surveillance could have been anyone. They didn't have to be recognizable to John, and it was obviously better from her perspective if they weren't.

When it really started to get under John's skin, he thought about Amanda, and how he'd accidentally assumed she was one of Mary's people. He'd been wrong, and Sherlock trusted her – it took conscious effort but John somehow managed not to convince himself that everyone who glanced at them or walked past the flat was a spy.

He got used to it – eventually, far more slowly than Sherlock's faculties returned, but by early December, with Christmas approaching, he felt comfortable again – maybe not safe, by at least somewhat secure.

He might have known Mary would pick her time well.


	24. Chapter 24

She examined herself critically in the mirror of the small compact, smoothing strands of hair here and there until it was perfectly coifed, creating the image she wanted.

Of course, this was a wig – her own hair was nearly as short as the pixie style she was currently sporting, but not as dark. There was an off-chance that Alexandre Georges would recognize the hairstyle she'd had when she'd rescued him, and with all of the media attention his abduction and rescue had generated, Mary had no inclination to take unnecessary risks. It had been simple enough to have her A-line bob restyled into something shorter, to have some darker highlights put in, nothing drastic, a deep caramel that suited her dark blond hair.

The dark brown suited her too, and she considered making the switch permanent, although it would have to wait. Too soon after this and she ran the risk of being noticed.

The glasses helped; they were unnecessary on a functional level, but drew attention away from the rest of her, and some small adjustments to her comportment and posture added to the illusion – when this was all done, her target would walk away none the wiser.

Of course, this was something of a gamble. One she'd carefully examined from all angles, laying the groundwork for months before even making contact with Alexandre. Too soon and he would be suspicious – chances were that he already was, and there was a distinct possibility that he would alert the _gens d'armes_.

If it came to that, Mary had contingencies. She'd doubled her usual number of back-up plans, ensuring she'd walk away from this without any damage to herself – and, if possible, to her brother.

He'd agreed to meet her at a hotel bar – not anywhere close to where she was staying, but it was handy for him to think she might have rented a room there. The venue was public enough that she couldn't try anything, but discreet enough, with no other patrons at this time of day, that they'd have a chance to talk.

Alexandre surprised her somewhat – apparently he knew some of the staff here, given the greetings he received. The staff were trained to be gracious and welcoming, but there was something a touch more personal to how they greeted her brother.

Mary doubted it was because of frequent custom. She'd checked up on him enough to know there was nothing untoward in his personal life, which she counted as a blessing. Those things could be managed, but, on the whole, she'd rather not.

He was enough of a complication, one she couldn't simply get rid of – and, much to her surprise, one she didn't _want_ to get rid of.

The relaxed attitude vanished when he saw her, replaced by a hard set to his jaw, a slight shifting of his posture to defensive. Mary ignored it, rising to shake his hand, supressing the surprise at seeing none of herself reflected in his features.

He apparently didn't take after their father.

Then again, neither did she.

"Thank you for coming," she said, gesturing to the seat across the small table from her.

"You can tell your client to forget it," he said, remaining standing. Mary did the same, fingertips resting on the tabletop. "And to stop wasting my time."

"Monsieur Georges–"

"I have no interest in her," he interjected.

"She understands."

"Then why meet me?" he demanded. Mary didn't bother pointing out he'd also chosen to come, and gestured again at the chair.

"Please, five minutes of your time, then I assure you, you'll never hear from us again."

Alexandre sat with bad grace, folding his hands on the table and glaring at her.

"You're right. I won't," he agreed, and she hear the warning in there, loud and clear.

"Let me begin by passing on my client's apologies." She avoided referring to herself – her supposed 'client' – as his sister, correctly judging that it would make him completely unreceptive. "She is very sorry for the distress you suffered."

"Good for her," Alexandre said.

"She'd like to know if there's anything she can do for you."

"She can turn herself over to Interpol," he replied curtly. Mary feigned smothered surprise, and Alexandre sighed, leaning back in his chair, eyes narrowed.

"Don't bother," he said. "I could have told the police, but what good would it have done? She's arranged it so nothing can touch you – I doubt they could even touch her, even if she was right in front of them. Do you know how I know that? I've had more meetings and interviews with the police than I can count, each of them trying to uncover everything I know about her. I know nothing, but they keep asking – and it's not because they don't believe me. It's because they don't have anything. Nothing substantive. She's like ice, isn't she? Everything slides right off. Because she's set it up that way."

He leaned forward again, dark eyes bright.

"And even if she hasn't, she's got a whole army of lawyers like you. I'm not a police officer, but I've worked with enough of them to understand how easily money can make things vanish. Evidence. Problems. Other people."

Mary drew a breath to reply but Alexandre shook his head, shooting her a warning glare.

"So you can go back and tell your client that I want nothing from her. Exactly nothing. No meetings, no money, no protection. No contact. Nothing. If she ever comes near me or my family – for _any_ reason – I don't know how, but I'll find out. And I won't sit and talk and be reasonable. Do you understand?"

Mary paused, not entirely having to fake being nonplussed.

"Yes," she said.

"Good," Alexandre said, pushing himself to his feet. He gave her one more long look, then stalked away without pausing or glancing back.

Mary stayed seated, watching him leave, then sighed when he was out of sight – half for show, half not. That had been simpler than she'd hoped, and Alexandre's refusal to have anything to do with her made her life far less complicated.

It was always trying when people were unreasonably sentimental about family. It did seem odd, the idea that she had a brother out there, whose existence was so new to her but who had been living a whole life before crossing her path, but she was glad that it had to be no more than a passing knowledge.

She'd keep an eye on him, of course – from a distance and through third parties, because she had no desire to have him used against her again. The connection between them may have been personal, but it was a relief that the solution was purely professional.

Alexandre's impact on her life would have to be controlled. Loose ends were as irritating as they were dangerous.

But there would be no curiosity from a brother who had never cared to know her before, and there was no debt to be repaid. Not here.

Mary stood, slinging her handbag over her shoulder, heels clicking faintly on the hard floor as she crossed the bar towards the hotel lobby.

There _was_ one debt she did owe, however.

It was time she saw it eliminated.

* * *

It didn't come the way John had been expecting – any of the ways, the ones he'd come up with in the middle of the night or on the tube on the way home from work or waiting in line at the shops.

It had nothing to do with Sherlock when it happened – or rather, it did, but the detective was oblivious to it, entrenched in an experiment and on the phone with Molly, who was mirroring his study at the morgue. John had picked a time to be conveniently ignorant as to what was happening in his own kitchen, distracting himself by doing the tedious but necessary maintenance of Sherlock's bank accounts.

Left to his own devices, Sherlock did nothing with them; John assumed that before him, Mycroft had managed all of the details, if only to ensure his baby brother didn't end up in prison for tax evasion.

Probably wouldn't have reflected well on him, John thought with a faint smirk.

The abrupt jump in the account made his smile vanish – a single payment for fifty thousand pounds nearly knocked him out of his chair, leaving him convinced that his eyes were playing tricks on him.

When the number on the screen didn't vanish, John looked into the payment carefully, still waiting for it to disappear. The memo attached to the transfer read simply 'consulting fees', and there was no name attached to the account it had come from.

He probably could have called Mycroft and had the account traced, but John had a very good idea that would only lead them on a wild goose chase with nothing but dead ends.

Mary wouldn't have sent the money if she thought for a moment it could be traced in any way.

John wouldn't have been surprised if the account had been a dummy one, set up only for this, now defunct.

He sighed, leaning back in his chair, wondering what to do.

In the end, he transferred half of it into short-term investments, and kept the other half for them as income. He didn't mention it to Sherlock, who either never noticed or didn't care – as long as his debit card wasn't declined, Sherlock didn't care one whit what John did with their finances.

He held out some vague hope that he might be able to convince Sherlock to take a proper holiday – one that was planned as such – someday. It would be nice to have something to finance that without resorting to Mycroft's credit cards. He'd also been thinking about converting the downstairs kitchen into a lab for Sherlock, one with a fume hood and all of the other proper equipment.

It would keep Sherlock out of Molly's hair, and keep unknown and potentially toxic ingredients out of their dinners.

And John had specific plans for the rest of the money – or as specific as it could get, dependant on other people. It might take some time, but he suspected Harry and Amanda might enjoy not having to pay for a wedding and a honeymoon.

Harry didn't need to know where it came from – Sherlock had other high-paying clients, after all – but after everything Mary had done to the people John loved, there was something very smugly satisfying about the idea of using her blood money to pay for Harry's happiness.

* * *

The house was silent save for the faint and occasional strains from his violin. The music wasn't much right now, snatches of melodies that were punctuated by silence as Sherlock noted them down, tweaking them to bring the half-formed tunes in his mind closer to reality. It would be something full and complete in time – he didn't know when, but it scarcely mattered. Once it was pieced together, he could play it for John before moving on, the charm of creating something new outweighing any desires to revisit older material.

Only the old masters kept him captivated, returning again and again to chase the meanings in their melodies, all the hidden nuances and suggestions.

That was their genius.

Sherlock supposed if he'd turned his own genius to music, he'd have accomplished the same thing. But there was no real exhilaration there for him – it was genius on a level that reached the masses, the bypassed intellect and appealed directly to emotion, but beyond that, there was no challenge to it. No triumph.

 _Show off_ , John's voice said in his mind and he smiled despite himself, giving a quiet chuckle.

Hudson, asleep at his feet, raising her head to look at him owlishly. Sherlock crouched down to scratch her ears, earning an errant lick on his palm. She wagged her tail once or twice, then settled down again, watching him briefly before dropping back to sleep.

Sherlock considered sleep himself – he wasn't tired, but the idea of crawling into bed next to a warm and pliable John was always appealing. The doctor was sound asleep upstairs in their bed, and, over the months, had grown used to Sherlock joining him at all hours. It no longer woke John up (unless Sherlock wanted it to), but the doctor developed the habit of curling himself around Sherlock in his sleep.

It had taken some adjustment at first, but Sherlock now found the idea of sleeping without it unappealing.

He would go up soon, he promised himself. It _was_ Christmas, after all, and waking up in the morning next to him was a gift John would appreciate.

Sherlock finished what he could of his composition and packed his violin away carefully before taking it back upstairs. Hudson followed next to him, her steps as silent as his, watching him intently as he stowed the instrument in its usual space.

Sherlock's phone buzzed quietly, surprising him slightly and making Hudson's ears perk up. He pulled it from his pocket, instantly on alert at the blocked number and the instruction:

_Look outside._

He crossed the living room silently, avoiding casting a shadow in the faint light from the Christmas tree, and kept himself close to the wall, just barely twitching the curtain aside enough to peer down at the nearly empty street below.

A familiar figure stood in a circle of street light, gazing directly up at him, hands tucked into her pockets, a slight smile on her face.

Sherlock relaxed minutely, scanning the rest of the street quickly, vaguely surprised that his brother's surveillance people hadn't come roaring out of nowhere.

Then again, it _was_ Christmas. And the woman waiting for him had resources of her own.

He let the curtain fall back, crossing the room to shrug on his coat and whispered to the dog. Hudson followed him down the stairs, giving him a curious look; it wasn't entirely unusual that he take her out in the middle of the night, but she was intelligent enough to know when he intended to go to bed – and had probably been anticipating more sleep herself.

Sherlock slipped his keys from a hook near the front door and stepped outside, crossing the silent street in the mid-winter darkness.

He kept away from the streetlights, using the poor illumination to foil the security cameras. There was no need for Mycroft to witness this – but then again, the cameras had probably been redirected to other views before she'd even arrived.

"Hi," Bridget said, stepping up next to him, giving him a cheery smile, breath hanging in the air in front of her. Hudson sniffed her, on alert. She didn't growl, but Sherlock noted the way she stayed standing and kept close to him.

"Does Mary know you're here?" Sherlock asked, letting a cool note dip into his voice that she ignored.

"No," Bridget said, shrugging slightly.

"Bit risky, don't you think?"

"I'll tell her," Bridget replied. "She doesn't have to approve everything I do before I do it, but she'd find out anyway. Better she learns it from me."

"Easier to ask forgiveness and all that," Sherlock drawled, and Bridget grinned. "Just stopped in for a chat?"

"Came to see how you were, yeah," she replied. "How's the head?"

"Healed," Sherlock said stonily.

"Glad to hear it. Obviously a hospital visit was out of the question, but I _was_ worried."

"Very kind of you, I'm sure," he replied.

"Not for nothing I saved your life those two times," Bridget pointed out. "I wouldn't want that to go to waste."

"In that case, perhaps you'd advise your boss about hitting people on the head."

"She did what she had to do," Bridget said with a shrug.

"Yes, I imagine you all live by that philosophy."

"Better than dying by it. Besides, I suspect you're not much different."

Sherlock didn't deign to reply, arching an eyebrow instead.

"How's John?" Bridget asked.

"All the better for you asking, I'm sure," Sherlock replied.

"And who's this?" Bridget asked, glancing down at Hudson, wisely not extending a hand to let the dog sniff her.

"Our dog."

"Is she friendly?"

"Generally yes, but she may make an exception. Best not to test it, I think."

Bridget nodded, as if receiving sage advice, and kept her hands in her pockets.

"Why _are_ you here?" Sherlock sighed.

"It really is to see how you are," Bridget said.

"I'm fine," Sherlock replied shortly. " _We're_ fine. Now."

She studied him carefully; Sherlock kept his expression deliberately neutral, refusing to give anything away.

"Good," she said after a moment. "I _am_ glad to hear that." She paused, regarding him almost curiously. "Will you tell John I stopped by?"

It wasn't a hope or an instruction, but a genuine question. Sherlock bristled, and tried not to let it show.

"Yes," he said.

"When?" she asked with that same sincere curiosity. Sherlock hardened his expression and said nothing – he could leave it at this, and John would never know. He could mention it a week or two from now, in passing, as if it had slipped his mind. He could wait until morning, under the guise of wanting to let John sleep.

But he would go upstairs and wake John and tell him. Bridget would be long gone by then, but it didn't matter.

Some things were important.

"Suit yourself," Bridget said.

"I always do," Sherlock replied, annoyed when she grinned again.

"Good. Take care of yourself, Sherlock. And of John." She turned to walk away, leaving him with an unerring certainty that this was the last time either of them would see her.

A few steps later, she turned back, regarding him for a long moment.

"She's not in London anymore. Thought you might want to know that."

"Where is she?" Sherlock replied.

"Good try," Bridget said with a smile. "Merry Christmas, Sherlock. Same to John."

"Merry Christmas," he echoed, surprised to find he meant it. Bridget gave him another smile and was gone, a figure fading into the winter night.

He watched her go until she'd vanished into the darkness, then sighed, glancing down at Hudson, who looked up at him expectantly.

"Come on, girl," he said quietly. "Let's go home."

* * *

New Year's Eve was a tedious tradition, an arbitrary marker that wasn't tethered to anything, missing the winter solstice by ten days on average and serving no practical function in Sherlock's life. It was too close to his birthday to be of real value – there was no point overshadowing the important celebration.

But he'd been privately anticipating this New Year's Eve, if only because John had made very firm plans to keep them at home together, without any guests. They'd spent Christmas morning alone, but had bowed to obligatory family obligations for dinner – thankfully only with Harry and Amanda, rather than having to leave London and be entrapped at Sherlock's parents' for days on end.

It would have been better if there had been a case on, but an evening alone with John, who was in a celebratory mood, was a more than acceptable alternative. Particularly because some alcohol had loosened the doctor's inhibitions, making him far more receptive to a few suggestions Sherlock had, which John had thoroughly and enthusiastically enjoyed, leaving them spent and sated, intertwined in the tangled sheets just before midnight, John's fingers carding through Sherlock's curls.

Sherlock huffed, raising his head when John shifted to sitting. He gripped the doctor's wrist, intent on keeping John where he was, but John raised Sherlock's knuckles to his lips, brushing his lips over them reassuringly.

"I'll be right back," he promised.

"Fine," Sherlock muttered, consenting to let John up, rolling onto his back and tugging the sheet more closely around him. He enjoyed the view as John padded out of the room, then pushed himself to his feet with a small scowl, slipping on the dark brown dressing gown.

John came back a few minutes later, with a bottle of champagne and two glasses, and the dog following closely behind him. He raised an eyebrow at Sherlock's clothing, but said nothing – Sherlock hadn't bothered knotting the gown shut, so it didn't really conceal anything.

John set the glasses down on the nightstand next to his side of the bed, and Sherlock called Hudson up, a rare treat for her. She lay down next to him, sprawling the length of his legs, her nose digging into his hip as he scratched her ears absently.

Sherlock regarded the champagne bottle as John poured; to say it was expensive would have been vastly underselling it. It wasn't typical of John, who was normally reserved in his spending – although the doctor had recently suggested turning the downstairs kitchen into a lab, assuring Sherlock they could cover the cost.

Sherlock liked that idea, so hadn't raised any argument. Nor would he raise any argument about excellent champagne, although he did cock an eyebrow enquiringly at his partner when John settled back onto the bed next to him, weaving his fingers into Hudson's ruff.

"I thought we should mark the end of the year," John said, cheeks going red the way they did when he was embarrassed by the emotional reasoning behind his actions, but determined to forge ahead anyway. "This year's been– There's been a lot of– well, there's just been a lot this year, hasn't there?"

"There has," Sherlock agreed, a slightly sombre sense settling over him. He took a sip of his champagne, enjoying the crisp coolness, but John fiddled with his glass, rolling the stem between thumb and forefinger.

"It's, um…" John paused, eyes downcast for a moment before raising his gaze to meet Sherlock's with some reluctance. He sighed, shaking his head, muscles in his jaw working. Sherlock was tempted to lean over and kiss him, but resisted – it was not the right response right now, and would only make John feel silenced. "She's still out there, you know."

"She is," Sherlock agreed. John watched him carefully, then gave a resigned nod, gaze darting downward. "But," Sherlock continued, watching blue eyes flicker back up, "we're still here."

A grin split John's lips, like a sunbeam bursting through thick clouds.

"We are at that," John agreed.

Sherlock tipped his glass towards John's, touching the rims together.

"Happy New Year, John."

John's grin widened, and he leaned over, closing the space between them, brushing their lips together.

"Happy New Year, Sherlock."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And... that's it! I'd like to say thank you to everyone for reading, and a huge thank you to my best friend and beta, AGirloftheSouth, who helped me see this story arc through from beginning to end. I really appreciate all the kudos and especially the reviews - I'm happy to know I'm not the only one enjoying this ride!


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